Newsletter Signup

Your customer service team's performance can have a major impact on the customer experience and the overall success of your brand. Like any employee, though, customer service agents sometimes need motivation and direction to achieve the best results.‍

65% of customers have higher expectations for customer support than they did three to five years ago, so offering incentives designed to improve agent performance is now more important than ever. And as customer experience continues to have a larger impact on overall revenue, ensuring agent performance aligns with company goals is mission-critical.

We put together this guide to help you develop an employee incentive program with incentive ideas to boost employee morale, employee satisfaction, and overall performance. We also chatted with Caela Castillo, Director of Customer Experience at men’s jewelry retailer Jaxxon, and share some best practices from her team’s incentive program.

Why are customer support incentives important for your team?

According to Gorgias data from over 10,000 merchants, launching a customer service employee incentive program can lift overall revenue by 1%.

There are a couple of reasons why incentive plans for customer support teams can offer this degree of value. The first and most obvious benefit of these programs is that they are proven to boost agent performance: Properly structured incentive programs can improve employee performance by as much as 44%.

Customer support incentive programs are especially beneficial when you can align your incentive programs with company goals and channel that performance boost toward the areas that matter most.

Along with improving agent performance, customer support incentive programs can also improve employee retention. The cost of replacing an employee is typically one-half to two times the employee's annual salary, and employee recognition programs can help mitigate turnaround and boost retention.

Here’s what Caela says about the impact of customer support incentives at Jaxxon:

Agents love having these goals because it keeps morale high, allows them to show off their performance, and comes with a prize if they hit their goals! We do switch things up often so that the agents don't feel like they have to hit certain goals only when a prize is attached and we have yet to see those scores decline.

7 great ways to incentivize customer support

The final step in designing an incentive program is choosing the rewards you will provide to your team and individual agents when they reach company goals. The sky's the limit here, and there's a lot of room to create creative goals that will best motivate your agents.

To help you get started choosing the rewards for your incentive program, here are a few great ideas for how to incentivize customer support agents:

1. Issue an extra paid day off to the top performing team member
2. Reward the team with a free lunch after hitting a goal
3. Create an internal team Slack channel to celebrate wins
4. Give out cash bonuses
5. Offer flex time to your customer service teams
6. Create a customer service team member of the month incentive
7. Award top performers with company swag or other gifts

1) Issue an extra paid day off to the top performing team member

Issuing rewards to the top performing team member during a given period encourages healthy competition that inspires agents to do their best work. Extra paid time off is an especially great incentive for companies without budget for monetary compensation.

Why we love this idea

Issuing an extra paid day off to your top performing team member recognizes the individual efforts of the agents that contribute the most to your company. Those kinds of results deserve to be recognized, and everyone loves paid time off! The biggest benefit of this incentive, though, is that it encourages (healthy) competition. In many cases, the friendly competition and desire to be the top performer will be even bigger motivators than the reward itself.

 2) Reward the team with a free lunch after hitting a goal

Along with rewarding individual performance, it's also important to reward team-wide performance in order to encourage teamwork and collaboration. Treating your support team to a free lunch (or a gift card for a local restaurant for remote teams) is a simple and affordable way to reward your entire team for reaching a team-wide goal.

Why we love this idea

Treating your support team to lunch lets you reward your entire team in one easy, relatively affordable event. It also encourages more team bonding and provides your team with an opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments.

3) Create an internal team Slack channel to celebrate wins

Slack is a great platform for project management and team communication, but you can use it to celebrate accomplishments, too. By creating an internal Slack channel to announce and celebrate individual and team-wide accomplishments, you can ensure that all your agents feel recognized for their hard work.

Why we love this idea

Recognition alone is sometimes all it takes to motivate an employee — and recondition is free. Setting up an internal Slack channel to celebrate wins provides a medium for recognizing agent performance and allows agents to celebrate together, further encouraging team bonding.

Here at Gorgias, have a #wins channel for informal praise and use Lattice to give employees official recognition:

4) Give out cash bonuses

It might not be the most original or creative incentive, but that doesn't mean it's not effective. No matter who it is that you are rewarding, you can rest assured that they are going to appreciate a cash bonus. Offering bonuses when agents meet individual goals or even team-wide bonuses for team goals is guaranteed to provide your agents with a strong source of motivation.

Why we love this idea

Cash is king, and few things will incentivize an employee more than cash bonuses. Cash bonuses are also the most straightforward type of reward and don't require extra effort or planning.

5) Offer flex time to your customer service teams

The ability to set their own hours is something that employees have come to value more and more, so offering flex time to your support agents can be a great incentive. You can offer this incentive as a one-time reward (for example, letting an agent set their own hours for one week after reaching a goal), or you can provide agents who continually meet their objectives with the option to set their own hours on an ongoing basis.

Why we love this idea

This is another simple and affordable way to provide support reps with a desirable incentive. Best of all, offering flex time may actually improve your team's performance on its own; according to a 2021 Gartner survey, 43% of employees say that having flexible working hours helps them achieve greater productivity.

6) Create a customer service team member of the month incentive

There's a reason why "employee of the month" programs are so popular. Recognizing the top performer on your support team each month won't cost your company anything, and it'll promote healthy competition within your team.

Why we love this idea

Again, recognition alone is often the best reward and most powerful source of motivation. By making something of a spectacle out of recognizing your top performers (company announcement, plaque, etc.), you can incentivize your support team with minimal effort and expense.

7) Award top performers with company swag or other gifts

Cash is great, but there's still something special about receiving a physical gift. Offering company swag, such as branded t-shirts, pens, and coffee mugs, to top performers is one great option to consider (if your company has swag to offer). Letting employees choose their own gifts from a catalog of available options is another commonly employed method of rewarding employees with physical gifts.

Consider an employee gifting platform like Guusto to recognize employees with a wide variety of gifts. And with Guusto, a dollar of every gift goes toward providing clean drinking water for someone in need:

Why we love this idea

Gifts are often valued more by the receiver than their monetary value. As a bonus, rewarding your top performers with company swag means that they will be promoting your brand everywhere that they take their new gifts.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

How to design a customer service incentive program

If you would like to design an incentive program that will reward your team's hard work and provide them with intrinsic motivation to offer the best customer service possible, here are the six steps that you should follow:

1) Identify a core company goal based on demonstrated problem

One benefit of customer service incentive programs is providing recognition and improving employee engagement and satisfaction. However, the biggest benefit of such programs is that you can use them to steer support teams toward accomplishing key company goals.

Before you can create a program that will incentivize your whole team to work toward important company goals, you first need to define what those goals are. Attracting new customers, generating referrals, and improving customer loyalty or customer retention rates are just a few measurable goals you can build your incentive program around. 

One best practice is to design your goals around a demonstrated problem. For instance, if your resolution times are longer than you'd like them to be, creating an incentive program to reward helpful response times may improve customer satisfaction.

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box here. Most customer service teams will default to metrics like first-response time, which is a great option. But as you develop your program further, remember that customer support has a large impact across the customer journey. Don’t be afraid to think about goals related to on-site conversion rate, proactive conversations with customers, conversations on public social media channels, educational content in your knowledge base, and beyond.

For example, Gorgias incentives employees to refer friends and former colleagues to improve our hiring effort. If you are in the midst of customer service hiring, consider using a program like Trusty for employee referrals:

2) Search for a customer service metric that has room for improvement (and aligns with the company goal)

Goals are only beneficial if they are measurable. You can't hand out performance-based awards unless you can keep score, which requires you to identify and track measurable customer service metrics. So once you have an overall company goal in mind, do some digging to see which metric will have the biggest impact:

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT), response and resolution times, net promoter score (NPS), and retention rates are a few of the measurable customer service metrics that you can use to evaluate the performance of individual agents and the performance of your whole team. By pinpointing metrics that align with the company goals you set for your incentive program, you can create a data-based system for measuring and rewarding agent performance that will encourage progress toward essential company objectives.

Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of customer support metrics Caela’s team lowered with incentives: 

We used to have Live Chat FRT around 45 seconds. With this program, we have brought it down to under 30s even hitting 15s. With phone answer times our goal used to be 80% answered within 30s and now it's 90% answered within 15s.

3) Consider individual and team-wide rewards programs

Individual and team-wide incentives both have their place in a customer service incentive program. Team-wide incentives encourage teamwork and collaboration and can focus your entire team's efforts toward a common goal. Meanwhile, individual incentives encourage personal responsibility and individual agent performance and ensure that each agent is recognized for their contributions.

As you create your incentive program, developing a rewards system that encourages individual and team-wide performance will deliver the best results.

Here’s how Caela thinks about individual vs. team goals:

We have both individual and team goals. We switch these up month to month or depending on what we want to focus on. I have seen more success with team goals because it keeps everyone motivated and encourages them to hold each other accountable. Team goals are hit almost consistently every month. When we do individual goals, we typically have an 80% success rate.

4) Set up a system to track your metrics in real time

We've already mentioned the importance of choosing measurable metrics that are aligned with company goals. In many cases, actually measuring those metrics on an ongoing basis is easier said than done.

Helpdesk software such as Gorgias makes tracking key customer service metrics in real time easier than ever before. With Gorgias, you can access detailed metrics and analytics about individual agent performance and team-wide performance — metrics that you can use to form the scoring system for your incentive program. 

With a unified dashboard that clearly showcases key metrics regarding revenue generation, customer satisfaction, response times, and much more, Gorgias makes it easy for ecommerce stores to track the performance of their support teams in real-time.

We mostly use Support Performance: Overview, Agents, and Revenue to track those goals. But, we also use Self-Service and occasionally tags. (I’m interested to learn how to use these more efficiently and explore the Macros and Intents stats as well).

Here’s a glance at the Overview of Support Performance Statistics in Gorgias, which you can filter by agent, period of time, channel, and much more:

Gorgias also has other analytics views, including a Revenue Statistics view (which we’ll cover below) and a Customer Satisfaction view to track improvements in CSAT over time:

5) Create a policy and announce your new incentive program

Like any new program, your customer service policy will only succeed once employees understand how to participate. To get started, keep the program as simple as possible. Simple perks — Jaxxon offers Amazon gift cards, for example — for simple improvements. 

If you have a human resources department, consider consulting them to make the policy airtight. Otherwise, here’s a template to get you started:

Purpose: [Company name] is launching a customer service incentive program to make strides toward two company goals: improving employee engagement and customer experience. The program provides monetary bonuses to team members who meet team goals set at the beginning of each quarter. We understand that our customer service team is a large contributor to loyal customers and company revenue, and are thrilled to have a formal employee recognition program to reward these important efforts. 

Incentive structure:

• The Director of Customer Support sets individual and team goals at the beginning of each quarter
• Each agent’s level (L1, L2, L3) determines their individual goal for the quarter
• The team
• Individuals who meet their goal qualify for an individual reward (e.g. $100 Amazon gift card)
• If the team meets the goal, all agents will receive a team reward (e.g. $25 Amazon gift card)

Eligibility:

• Only full-time employees of [Company name] are eligible for incentives
• Part-time and outsourced call-center agents do not qualify for the program
• Employees eligible for other company incentive programs do not qualify for the program
• Employees on performance improvement plans (PiPs) do not qualify for the program

Procedure to claim rewards:

• Agents do not need to reach out to redeem rewards: the Director of Customer Support will distribute rewards by the 15th of the following month
• If you do not receive your reward by the 15th, reach out to the Director of Customer Support to resolve the issue

6) Revisit your chosen metrics often and tweak them as needed

Incentive programs are at their best when they are dynamic, continually adapting to meet new goals and address new challenges. By tracking customer support metrics in real time using Gorgias' helpdesk software, you can easily revisit the metrics you chose for your incentive program and adjust the program's goals as needed.

Ideally, your customer support incentive program will enable you to improve key customer support metrics and move on to new goals as previous goals are met. However, there may also be cases where you determine that a metric might not be the best one to base your program around, and you need to change it. In either case, continually tracking customer support metrics and tweaking your incentive program enables you to keep the program aligned with company goals as your company scales and new challenges and opportunities arise.

Why customer support incentives are a great way to drive revenue

One of the best metrics to base your customer support incentive program on is revenue generation. While customer support teams are often viewed as problem-solvers, the reality is that your customer support team can greatly impact your ecommerce store's bottom line in a lot of ways. Generating referrals, promoting customer loyalty, reducing cart abandonment, and driving conversions via upsells and personalized product recommendations are just a few ways that excellent customer support can create revenue for ecommerce stores.

Most brands have trouble understanding the amount of revenue customer support brings in, which is why we developed the Revenue Statistics dashboard in Gorgias. You can see real-time metrics like the conversion rate of customer support conversation and the total sales driven by support:

To learn more about how great customer support can drive revenue for ecommerce stores, check out Gorgias' CX-Driven Growth Playbook.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

Track and reward customer support performance with Gorgias

Creating an incentive program for your customer support team is one of the best ways to motivate team members and focus their efforts toward company goals. But to create an incentive program around measurable, impactful metrics, you need the right tools by your side. 

With Gorgias' industry-leading helpdesk, you can track key support metrics like revenue generation, referrals, customer satisfaction, response time, and much more. Find out how we helped our customers transform their customer support teams into revenue-generating machines, and book a demo to see what we can do for your team.

The overall best customer support metrics to track:

• First contact resolution (FCR) signifies how efficient and knowledgeable your team is at solving inquiries within one interaction.
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) shows how happy customers are with your brand and customer service.
• Self-service resolution rate highlights how well you make the most of self-service resources.
• The tickets closed per agent metric suggests agent efficiency and serves as a benchmark for your support team's average performance.
• Revenue churn rate lets you see the financial impact of losing customers, allowing you to create a more informed strategy.
• Converted tickets indicate how effectively your support agents promote and upsell your product.

Most brands keep a close eye on sales numbers, marketing performance, and other parts of the business that generate revenue. But they don’t do a great job measuring customer support performance, usually because they don’t understand the link between customer experience and revenue.

Your customer support team might already measure how quickly you respond to support tickets, which is a great start. The list of metrics we share below paint a fuller picture of the larger impact customer support has on business growth. And once you can demonstrate your impact on business growth, you can start making the case for better tools and more staff.

Track these customer support metrics, improve them, and watch your customer loyalty, repeat purchases, and revenue rise.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

25 key customer service metrics for ecommerce 

Below, we describe 25 of the most essential customer service metrics, organized into six categories. Some metrics have to do with your team's performance — like how quickly and well you respond to tickets. Other metrics look deeper at your team's impact on larger company goals, like customer retention and revenue generation. 

We’ll also share how to calculate each of these metrics. For some, a simple formula will suffice. For others, a dedicated tool like a helpdesk or survey automation tool will save tons of time.

That said, here are the top customer support metrics to track:

Response time metrics

1. First response time (FRT)
2. Average resolution time (ART)
3. Average reply time
4. First call resolution (FCR) or single-reply resolution
5. Average ticket handle time (AHT)

Customer satisfaction metrics

1. Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
2. Support performance score
3. Customer effort score (CES)
4. Customer contact rate
5. Net promoter score (NPS)

Conversation metrics

1. Abandoned conversation rate
2. Unresolved ticket rate
3. Self-service resolution rate
4. Social media support tickets
5. Social media brand mentions

Agent performance metrics

1. Tickets closed per agent
2. Ticket quality
3. Template utilization

Churn & retention metrics

1. Repeat customer rate (RCR)
2. Customer retention rate (CRR)
3. Net retention rate (NRR)
4. Customer churn rate (CRR)
5. Revenue churn rate

Revenue-related metrics

1. Converted tickets
2. Revenue backlog

Response time metrics

1) First response time (FRT)

First response time (FRT) is a metric that tracks how long it takes for you to reply to the first message in a conversation with a customer.

Top performing companies using Gorgias have an average first response time of .54 hours. However, the benchmark varies per channel: aim to respond to email tickets within 24 hours and live chat messages within 90 seconds, according to Klipfolio. 

How to calculate average first response time

Calculating your average first response time is relatively simple — most helpdesks will report this number for you. If you don’t have a helpdesk, you can find first response times for tickets by comparing the time stamp when you first received the customer request with the timestamp of the first response. If you received the message at 8 AM on Monday and respond at 8 AM on Tuesday, your first response time is one day. 

Add up all of your first response times from the period of time you’re looking to analyze — for example, one month — and then divide that number by the total number of resolved tickets during that same time frame:

Total first response times during chosen time period / total # of resolved tickets during chosen time period = Average first response time 

Using real numbers, here’s an example of what this calculation looks like:

74,000 seconds / 800 resolved tickets = 92.5 seconds (average first response time)

2) Average reply time

Your average reply time (or average response time) refers to how long it takes for you to respond to any customer support message, not just the first message of a ticket. Your average response time should be similar to the first response time. You don’t want to keep customers waiting, even in prolonged conversations.

How to calculate average response time

To find your average response time, add up the total time your team has taken to respond to requests during a specific time period. Then, divide that number by the total number of responses your team sent during that time period:

Total time taken to respond during chosen time period / number of sent responses = Average response time

3) Average resolution time (ART)

Average resolution time (ART) refers to the amount of time it takes for your customer support team to fully solve the customer’s problem and close the ticket. We analyzed data across about 6,000 ecommerce companies using Gorgias to provide customer support and we found that the top-performing companies have an average resolution time of 1.67 hours. 

Inside Gorgias, your average resolution time is automatically tracked. In your account, you’ll get visual reports showing your average resolution time in a given time period.

How to calculate average resolution time

To calculate average resolution time, also sometimes referred to as “mean time,” begin by choosing a specific time period to analyze. Then, total up the length of all of your resolved conversations with customers during that time period. Once you have that number, divide it by the number of conversations had during the time period you’ve chosen to analyze:

Total duration of resolved conversations / # of customer conversations = Average resolution time

See our guide to resolution time to learn good-fit strategies to improve this metric.
4) First contact resolution (FCR) or single-reply resolution rate

You know what customers absolutely love? When they can get their issues resolved with a single interaction. Single-reply resolution rate calculates what percentage of your tickets are handled with the first reply. It’s also known as the first contact resolution rate or FCR. 

Single-reply resolution rate = Total number of requests resolved with one interaction in a single time period divided by the total number of requests in the same time period.

How to calculate this first contact resolution

To find your single-reply resolution rate, you can simply divide the number of support issues that were resolved on the first reply by the total number of tickets that are FCR-eligible (FCR-eligible means only including tickets that are possible to give a resolution in one response). As a formula, it would look like this:

Number of support issues resolved on first contact / total number of FCR-eligible support tickets = FCR rate

5) Average ticket handle time

The average handle time (AHT) is an important metric to track if you offer customer service via phone. In today’s online world, most ecommerce companies handle tickets only with chat and email. However, very large ecommerce brands may choose to provide phone call support as well. 

The average ticket handline time includes the total talk time and total hold time for that caller. You can calculate the average for larger periods of time to get better insights, such as per week or per month. 

Not using voice support? Learn about 4 benefits of adding voice support to your ecommerce store.

How to calculate average handle time

To find your average ticket handling time, add up the total time spent on all voice tickets within the time period you’re analyzing, including talk time, hold time, and follow-up time. Then, divide that number by the number of tickets a customer support agent handled on all channels within that same period of time:

Total voice ticket time / # of total tickets touched = Average handle time 

Customer satisfaction metrics

6) Customer satisfaction (CSAT)

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is a metric to measure your customer base’s level of satisfaction with their experience. CSAT is one of the most important measurements because satisfied customers return to your store, refer friends, leave reviews, and unlock reliable revenue for your brand.

CSAT compiles responses to a very simple question: “How would you rate the help [Agent] gave you?” You can use a survey or a website feedback widget to ask customers to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how satisfied they are with a support experience. 

CSAT aims to get an overall benchmark for your team’s performance, plus information about the service experience each agent provides. If this score suddenly drops or peaks, you should act fast to see what happened. For example, you may be sending delayed or unhelpful responses after launching a new product, getting a spike in ticket volume, or changing a policy like refunds and returns.

Read our in-depth guide to CSAT score for more tips on improving your CSAT score and CSAT survey response rates.

How to calculate CSAT

Calculate your customer satisfaction score by asking a question like, “How would you rate your satisfaction with the goods/services you received?” Then, you would give the customer the option to respond on a scale of 1-5. The scale would look something like this:

1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied

With Gorgias, you can automatically send one of these surveys after each interaction with customer support:

Once your customers respond, you’ll need to use the responses in this formula if you don’t have a helpdesk that does it automatically:

(Total number of 4 and 5 responses, or “satisfied customers” / number of total responses) x 100 = CSAT

An example of this could look like this:

(126 4 and 5 responses) / (300 total responses) x 100 = 42% CSAT, which indicates you aren’t doing a great job of satisfying customers.

If you use Gorgias, you can automatically send customer satisfaction surveys and track your scores over time. Learn more about our satisfaction survey and dashboard:

7) Support performance score

Support performance score is a metric Gorgias created that combines average first response time, average resolution time, and CSAT for a single score out of five that concisely represents your customer service performance. If you could only track one customer service metric — which we do not recommend — it would be this one.

Support performance score balances these three metrics to represent three of the most important elements of quality support:

• Speed, with first response time
• Helpfulness, with average resolution time
• Customer satisfaction, with CSAT score

How to calculate support performance score

Support performance score is calculated with a series of thresholds for CSAT, FRT, and resolution time. You have to meet the threshold in each category to reach the next level. Here are the thresholds for FRT, for example:

• Level 1 (poor): 13+ hours
• Level 2 (lagging): 12 hours
• Level 3 (fair): 6 hours
• Level 4 (strong): 1 hour
• Level 5 (exceptional) 10 minutes

If you use Gorgias, you’ll see your support performance score over time, plus a breakdown of each metric that makes up your score. 

8) Customer effort score (CES)

According to The Effortless Experience, 96% of high-effort customer experiences drive customer disloyalty. In other words, the amount of effort across your entire customer journey has a huge bearing on the success of your customer experience and, by extension, your brand’s revenue.

By measuring CES, you and your team members can work towards reducing customer effort, which in turn will increase the lifetime customer value and the likelihood of word-of-mouth referrals.

You may be wondering what exactly is considered “high effort.” This could include long wait times when a customer calls in or reaches out via email, or not getting a concise response — which leads to time-consuming back-and-forth. Of course, “effort” is subjective and highly dependent on the individual customer and their expectations. 

How to calculate customer effort score

To measure CES, you’ll need to utilize another survey. The questionnaire should ask the customer how much effort they had to exert in order to get their question answered. 

For example, “[insert company name] made it easy for me to handle my issue.” Then, you’d provide a scale of 1 to 10. A score of 1 would be “strongly disagree,” while 10 would be “strongly agree.” 

Once you’ve collected the data, you can calculate your average customer effort score:

Total sum of all responses / total number of responses = CES

9) Customer contact rate

Customer contact rate measures the percentage of active customers who contact support each day, month, or year.

A high customer contact rate is an indicator that your customer experience is confusing and unclear. It also means your agents will be swamped with tickets and may not have enough time to provide quality responses. 

A high contact rate might also drive down revenue: a customer support interaction is 4x more likely to drive disloyalty than it is to drive loyalty, according to The Effortless Experience. While you want to make your interactions as helpful as possible, you’re better off giving customers a clear, effortless experience without having to reach out to support in the first place.

You can drive down customer contact rate with clearer self-service resources, like an FAQ page and shipping and returns policies.

How to measure customer contact rate

Divide the number of customers who contact your customer service team for help over the course of a month by the number of total customers. Then, multiply that number by 100. 

Contact rate = (Number of customers who contact you in a month / Total number of customers) x 100

10) Net promoter score (NPS)

Similar to the CSAT, the NPS is a common metric for measuring customer satisfaction. Customers will rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your business to a friend. It’s best to measure this regularly, so you can determine your company’s benchmark and look for any drops or spikes in the average rating. 

You can use a feedback widget on your website to collect this data, or include the quick survey at the bottom of emails for transaction or shipping updates.

How to calculate net promoter score

To calculate net promoter score, you first need to gather data using a customer survey. Send a survey to customers after they make a purchase that asks them, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [products or service] to a friend or colleague?” On this scale, 0 would be not at all likely, and 10 would be extremely likely. 

Customers fall into three categories based on their responses to these surveys: promoters (scores 9 or 10), passives (scores 7 or 8), and detractors (scores 0 to 6). Once you have all the data collected, you can apply the numbers to this formula:

Total % of promoters - total % of detractors = Net promoter score 

See our best practices for getting the best NPS response rate.

Conversation metrics

11) Conversation abandonment rate

Conversation abandonment rate is a metric to understand how frequently your customers abruptly end interactions with customer support before reaching a clear resolution. 

Whether the conversation is happening via email, chat, or phone call, conversation abandonment signals something larger is wrong. Most conversation abandonment happens after customers wait too long or become frustrated by poor service. 

How to calculate conversation abandonment rate

To calculate this metric, all you need to track is the number of abandoned incidents and the total number of incidents. In this context, “incidents” refers to either calls, emails, or live chat sessions. Once you have those two numbers, you can plug them into the following formula:

Conversation abandonment rate = (Number of abandoned incidents / Total number of incidents) x 100

12) Unresolved ticket rate

Your average number of unresolved tickets is a very important metric to track because unresolved tickets are a leading indicator of unhappy customers. You don’t want too many unresolved tickets piling up. Set a company-wide goal for the maximum number of unresolved tickets per day, week, and month.

Your unresolved ticket rate includes all abandoned conversations, which you read about in the above section. They also include any tickets where the support team couldn’t provide a real solution, plus tickets that your support team forgot to follow up on.

How to calculate unsolved ticket rate

Similarly to ticket volume, you don’t need a specific formula to calculate your number of unresolved tickets. Rather, all you need is a reliable system (whether it’s a helpdesk or a process) for keeping track of how many tickets are left unresolved after a certain length of time. 

13) Self-service resolution rate

Want to know how well your self-service strategy — whether that’s automated chat conversations, self-service chat flows, a blog, or any other self-service resource — lowers customer and agent effort? 

You can separate out tickets that did not have a customer support representative work on them, and that were resolved only with automation. You can also track the amount of views your self-service resources get to understand how many tickets they deflect entirely. 

How to calculate self-service resolution rate

Finding your total self-service resolution rate is a bit difficult because you don’t have a ticket to open or close. You can track views on your self-service resources to understand whether they’re being adopted, and track changes to your contact rate to see if they reduce the number of tickets coming in.

Automated support resolution rate is a little easier to calculate:

Automated support resolution rate = Total number of requests resolved with only automation in a single time period divided by the total number of requests resolved with automation, manual support, and a combination of both (in the same time period).

(Solved tickets with automation / total tickets received) x 100 = Resolution rate 

14) Social media support tickets 

Customers’ issues do not only exist in your desired support channels like email and chat. Do you get support tickets on social media? Rather than fight against this trend and attempt to ask customers to submit a ticket via chat, you should respond and help them. Just don’t share sensitive data, of course. 

Measure the number of social media support tickets that you get every day, week, month, and quarter. When that number grows, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It could mean that more of your customers are interacting with your social media profiles. However, it’s still important to pay attention to the benchmark metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). Sudden changes could represent an issue with your product or shipping speeds.

With Gorgias, you can track and respond to every support ticket that comes through social media — or any channel — from within the helpdesk:

‍Learn more about Gorgias’ social media customer service features.

How to calculate this metric

Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear-cut way to measure and analyze social media support tickets, so we encourage you to use a social listening tool that allows you to do a number of things. For instance, tracking brand mentions on social media, as well as how many tickets are coming in through your social platforms during various periods of time. Having all of your social metrics in one place will make them much easier to analyze than pulling them one-by-one out of several different spreadsheets. 

15) Social media brand mentions

How frequently your brand is mentioned on social media is a critical metric to track if you want to provide incredible support and get on top of PR disasters. You should have a good benchmark for how often your brand is mentioned per day and per week. If the number spikes, then one of your products might have gone viral, or you’ve got a PR nightmare happening. 

You can pay attention to brand mentions with a social listening and brand monitoring software. It’s also smart to use a helpdesk built to manage social comments.

How to calculate this metric

To keep an eye on your social media brand mentions, you’ll need to tap into a social listening tool, as mentioned above. You can certainly try to do this manually and track it all in a spreadsheet, but similar to tracking the volume of tickets, digital software will make this process easier and more efficient. 

Agent performance metrics

16) Tickets closed per agent

You might also want to measure the number of tickets closed per agent for a certain time period. For example, you could look at the number of tickets each agent is closing per day to spot differences in productivity. You could look at a longer period of time, such as per month, to find which agents are consistently closing more tickets, assuming they each work the same number of hours. 

This will help you discover the agents who deserve praise and bonuses, and which ones might need training. If you find an agent that is always closing too few tickets, it may be time to let them go, unfortunately. 

With Gorgias, this metric is automatically tracked in your account:

Plus, you can zoom out to understand trends among agents over time, to compare performance or plan your weekly coverage schedules:

How to calculate this metric

To calculate the number of tickets closed per agent, take the total number of tickets closed during a certain time period and then divide it by the number of agents working during that same time period:

Total # tickets closed / # of agents = Tickets closed per agent

17) Ticket quality

Ticket quality isn’t a metric on its own, but it’s a metric you can create to score your agents’ tickets and work toward a consistent quality of response. 

We recommend all customer support teams develop a sort of rubric that defines, in objective terms, what a “good” response looks like. The rubric can include things like:

• Response time
• Level of empathy
• Adherence to brand voice
• Correctness (or adherence to company policies)

Your agents will appreciate having concrete goals for their tickets. Plus, you will have an easier time holding agents accountable to standards if they’re written down. You can, and should, regularly update your rubric as you dig into data to understand what ticket qualities actually produce the best results. 

How to measure ticket quality

As we said, this isn’t exactly a metric to measure. So instead, we’ll recommend that you spot check each agent’s tickets against this rubric. This doesn’t have to be an intimidating process. Some support companies have weekly ticket breakdowns where the entire team — or team leadership, for larger companies — discuss and score tickets against the rubric to get on the same page about ticket quality.

18) Template utilization

Templated responses save your agents a lot of time and, by extension, mean customers get answers faster. If you don’t have a customer support platform, you can create templated responses in Gmail to answer common questions like, “Where is my order?” (WISMO). If you use helpdesk software, you can also likely add pre-written responses agents can use for each channel. At Gorgias, we call these Macros.

You can get statistics on the utilization of your Macros in any given time period. You can then compare this to the use of tags. For example, if the tag “Cancel Order” was used 100 times in one week, but the Macro was only used 50 times, then that means that your reps only used the Macro half the time. 

Talk with your reps about why they’re underutilizing certain Macros. You might need to improve the copy of the Macros or add more variables to make it more useful. Or, you might simply need to remind new reps about the Macros feature.

How to calculate this metric

If you don’t use a helpdesk, you’ll likely have to manually review tickets to see when the template was and wasn’t used. Helpdesk software will automatically report on template utilization.

Churn & retention metrics

19) Repeat customer rate (RCR)

Your company will always have two types of customers: new customers and repeat customers. Tracking both is important, but tracking repeat customers specifically will help you determine if your retention efforts are working. Repeat customers also have a larger impact on overall revenue: Repeat customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers, according to data from Gorgias merchants.

The value of repeat customers is compounded by the fact that retaining a current customer is five times less expensive for a business than finding a brand new customer. 

How to calculate repeat customer rate

To calculate your repeat customer rate (RCR), you can divide your number of repeat customers by your total number of customers, then multiply that by 100. This means that in order to calculate the RCR properly, you need to already be tracking repeat customers versus new customers. The formula for RCR is as follows:

(Total repeat customers / total paying customers) x 100 = RCR

Using real numbers, here’s an example of what the RCR calculation looks like:

(80 repeat customers / 230 paying customers) x 100 = 34.78%

20) Customer retention rate (CRR)

As mentioned previously, retaining customers is always less expensive than finding new customers. That’s why customer retention rate (CRR) is a vital metric. Ecommerce companies in particular have an average CRR of about 30%, according to Omniconvert, so if your company’s CRR is lower than that, it could be a sign that your customer support isn’t as effective as it could be. 

How to calculate customer retention rate

To calculate CRR, you will need the following information: number of customers at the end of a given time period (E), number of customers gained within that time period (N), number of customers at the beginning of the time period (S). 

Then, plug those numbers into this formula:

CRR = [(E-N)/S] x 100

Tools like Mixpanel, Qualtrics, and Optimove can also help you automatically track this metric.

21) Net retention rate (NRR)

Net retention rate, sometimes called net dollar retention (NDR) or net revenue rate, measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from your existing customers over a month, quarter, or year. Klipfolio reports that a good NRR is anywhere between 90% and 125%, depending on your brand’s niche, product, and total addressable market (TAM). 

This metric is most common among SaaS companies and subscription-based ecommerce companies, but it can absolutely apply to all types of ecommerce brands and even other industries.

How to measure net retention rate

Net revenue retention depends on your business model — it’s easier to calculate for subscription companies than companies that sell standalone products. That said, here’s the formula for net retention rate: 

NRR = [(Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) at the start of a month + expansions + upsells - churn - contractions) / MRR at the start of the month] x 100

22) Customer churn rate (CRR)

Customer churn rate measures the amount of customers your business loses over a given time period.

Customer churn is a more common metric for SaaS businesses and other subscription-based business models because those business models can easily spot the moment when an active customer cancels their subscription, or churns. 

However, all businesses, including ecommerce businesses without subscription-based products can track churn rate. But ecommerce businesses might find revenue churn rate, which we discuss below, easier to track.

How to measure customer churn rate

To calculate customer churn rate calculation, gather the total number of customers who were with your business at the beginning of a time frame and the number of active customers at the end of the time you’re analyzing. Then, use this formula:

[(Customers at the beginning of the time period - customers at the end of the time period) / Customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = Customer churn rate (%)

23) Revenue churn rate

Revenue churn measures changes in your store’s incoming revenue from existing customers. Businesses that sell standalone products might find this more simple to track than customer churn rate, which is better geared toward subscription-based businesses.

Revenue churn rate is easier to conceptualize and measure because you’re measuring changes in revenue from existing customers, which is a clear-cut number for every type of store, not changes in existing customers themselves.

Formula for calculating revenue churn rate

First, find your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) — or the incoming revenue you got from existing customers — at the beginning of the month and subtract that from your MRR at the end of the month. Divide that amount by the total MRR at the beginning of the month. Here’s the formula:

[(Revenue from at the beginning of the time period - revenue from customers at the end of the time period) / Customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = Churn rate (%)

Revenue-related metrics

24) Converted tickets

The number of support tickets your customer support team converts into a purchase shows the value of your customer support team in cold, hard cash. We count a ticket as converted whenever a customer places an order within five days of contacting customer support. 

 Customer support agents can provide helpful pre-sales answers to new customers asking about things like product sizing or your returns policy. Likewise, a helpful interaction after a purchase could make a customer feel confident and loyal enough to place a repeat purchase.

With Gorgias, you can measure your converted tickets and other revenue statistics in a convenient dashboard. Converted tickets can be from self-service, or automated, and manual responses.

How to calculate converted tickets

Before you start calculating, make sure that both numbers are from the same time period. Then use this simple formula to calculate your converted tickets:

Total number of sales within five days of a customer support interaction / total number of tickets = Ticket conversion rate

Read more about how to optimize your conversion rate (CRO).

25) Revenue backlog

Revenue backlog helps you measure how much revenue your business will see in a coming period. This metric is especially for ecommerce brands with a subscription-based model. 

Keeping tabs on your revenue is vital to ensuring your brand's growth and continued success. By tracking your revenue backlog, you’ll be able to see if revenue is going to drop before it actually does. 

If you’re interested in tracking revenue, check out our list of KPIs for your ecommerce brand, which includes more than just customer service metrics.

How to measure revenue backlog

To determine your revenue backlog, you’ll just need the sum of the values of your customers’ subscriptions. If you don’t exclusively sell subscription packages, you’ll need to use tools like Dataweave or Y42 to measure upcoming revenue.

Why should ecommerce businesses track customer service metrics?

Happy customers are the best fuel for growth. In other words, the performance of your customer support team (and overall customer experience) directly impacts your bottom line. Customer service metrics help you understand — and improve — the value that customer service brings to your business.

Understand customer support’s impact on revenue

90% of American consumers say that customer service is a deciding factor in whether or not they will do business with a company. Potential customers might ask a question about delivery or the product before making a purchase. And shoppers depend on quality support experiences after the purchase for a great end-to-end experience. If you flub that chance, they may never come back.

Existing customers are also your biggest spenders, and they rely on quality customer support to stay loyal. According to Gorgias research, repeat customers generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers of ecommerce brands. We estimate that by increasing your repeat customer base by 20%, you could increase your revenue up to 6%.

Measure the quality of your customer experience

Customer experience is mission-critical — see above for its impact on your revenue — but it isn’t easy to measure. That’s because it encapsulates your on-site shopping experience, customer support interactions across many channels, post-purchase interactions like shipping and returns, and so much more. 

Customer support metrics help you evaluate your support program and the customer experience across all those touchpoints so you can benchmark your team’s performance, communicate your performance with company leaders, and find opportunities for improvement.

Find actionable opportunities for improvement

As we just mentioned, tracking a full suite of customer support metrics can also help you find specific areas of improvement. If you don’t keep track of many customer support metrics, you’ll only have extremely high-level impressions and small samples of customer feedback to paint a picture of your strengths and weaknesses.

But if you have real-time tracking for a wide range of metrics, you can better diagnose the problem and find a strategic solution. For example: 

• If your average resolution time is longer than eight hours, you might create new templated responses to help your agents send fast, helpful answers
• If your contact rate is too high, you could create more self-service resources such as chatbots, self-service flows, or knowledge bases to deflect more low-impact support requests

Make a case for additional training, staffing, and tools

Concrete metrics are great ammunition for your customer service team when making the case to business leaders for more budget to hire additional agents, purchase additional tools, and ramp up training. 

To argue for more investment, you can communicate which projects have produced early improvements. For example, if you set up an FAQ page and see lower contact rates, you can expand the page to a fully-fledged help center. 

You can also quantify challenges to make a case for more tools. For example, say your agents often ask customers to repeat information or lose time copy/pasting order information from your ecommerce platform to customer support conversations. You could make the case a helpdesk that unifies all your customer support channels and store data in one platform.

Likewise, metrics can help you forecast your customer service staffing needs and proactively hire customer service agents before it’s too late. 

Track and improve your customer service metrics with Gorgias

Now that you have all the important customer service metrics and formulas to support your customer success program, you may be ready to explore a product to help make tracking it all easier. A centralized customer service software like Gorgias can help save you and your team hours upon hours of time. That time you can spend getting back to what you do best: great customer support. 

The Gorgias platform connects all of your integrations and allows for robust analytics tracking, so you can:

• Track support performance
• Monitor agent-by-agent live statistics
• Measure revenue generated by your support team
• Launch customer satisfaction surveys

If you’re on a mission to measure how your customer service team performs (and stacks up against the rest of your industry), check out our benchmark report. 

If you want to improve your metrics with the ecommerce platform custom-built for ecommerce customer service teams, book a demo with us or try Gorgias for free today.‍

{{lead-magnet-2}}

The fact is that content marketing can help an eCommerce brand immensely, given that content is a foundational element for visibility in the SERPs, social media engagement, the cultivation of thought leadership and industry authority, lead generation, customer self-service, and other vital business activities.

But the reality is that most blogs fail, and for a variety of different reasons. One of the most prevailing is that it doesn’t generate immediate results, ultimately discouraging future content creation.

However, there are various tactics that merchants can use to cultivate traffic to blogs and boost conversions as a result of those visits.

For merchants who want to take advantage of the benefits that content marketing has to offer, here are seven ways to boost conversions with eCommerce blog content.

Focus on User Intent

One of the best ways to gain more site visitors who turn into paying customers is to create content that targets the intent of the user.

Of course, “user intent” is the reason behind the individual’s Google search. It is the outcome they aim to achieve.

For instance, if a consumer searches "best Bluetooth headphones," the intent behind the user's search is to obtain information that will narrow down their purchase options to just a couple of products.

When looking at how people search, there are three main types of user intents, often referred to as “Do, Know, Go.” Those intents are:

• Transactional (Do): Here, a consumer is aiming to make a purchase or some other form of transaction.
• Informational (Know): With this type of search, people are looking to learn, as in the aforementioned headphones example.
• Navigational (Go): When conducting such a search, users are trying to get to a specific website or location. These can often be branded searches.

When creating content for a blog, merchants will likely be targeting information queries. These types of searches will result in a consumer finding high-ranking materials that relate to their search for knowledge.

Alternatively, a transactional search will often lead shoppers directly to product pages.

However, this isn’t to say that sellers shouldn’t link to their item listings within information blogs, assuming that the product is relevant to the piece. This can actually be a great way to pull a shopper from the top of the funnel down to deeper stages. More on this momentarily.

The sales funnel model is something that marketers use to delineate the path to purchase that consumers take. While there are numerous iterations of this model, the basics are that:

• Consumers become aware of a product
• Prospects then begin to consider the product, research and compare their options
• Consumers make a decision and purchase a product or service

The job of site owners is to get consumers to move through the entirety of the brand’s sales funnel. Since awareness and research are highly dependent on the content offerings available to shoppers, merchants must craft quality content that targets top-of-funnel prospects.

Optimizing top-of-funnel content relies on uncovering and integrating long-tail keywords into various pieces. Since long-tail phrases are highly-specific and generate less search volume (and more conversions) than broad-head keywords, these phrases are a must.

Fortunately, a variety of tools such as Answer the Public, Keyword Tool, Ubersuggest and many others are geared specifically towards this task.

While all of these tools are extremely useful, Answer the Public is a favorite as it provides long-tail keywords questions that consumers are searching, thereby cluing in retailers even further as to what precisely potential buyers want to know.

In addition to these tools, sellers can also mine incredibly useful information about consumer queries from sites like Quora, Reddit and similar boards.

Speaking of answering questions, we also recommend you host an FAQ page on your website to help customers. Check out our free FAQ template to get started.

Optimize for SEO

While this idea was touched upon slightly with targeting long-tail terms and phrases, there is a lot more to optimizing content for conversions than just plugging in a few keywords.

For retailers to get the visibility required to earn clicks and conversions, it is necessary to optimize blog posts according to Google’s SEO ranking factors. Some tactics that merchants will want to utilize include:

• Optimizing for the targeted keyword
• Employing keyword variations
• Adding images and optimizing alt tags
• Linking to authoritative, relevant external pages
• Including related links to internal destinations
• Ensuring content is readable/scannable
• Creating a proper meta title

Additionally, while meta descriptions have no bearing on SEO performance, they do influence clicks, which does impact rankings. Therefore, crafting a concise, alluring and accurate meta description is also a necessity.

Link to a Relevant Product

Linking to a product within a piece of content is a simple yet effective tactic for driving clicks to product pages and earning conversions.

However, the key thing to remember here is that the item must be relevant to the content. If sellers create a blog centered on ways to remedy plantar fasciitis and then include a link to great running shoes, that link will generate very few clicks and even fewer sales.

Alternatively, if a seller talks about and links to shoes or inserts for plantar fasciitis, it is far more likely that the content will earn sales as a result of the internal link.

The point of the post is to solve the reader's problems. If merchants have a product that can achieve that goal, then it is vital to include a link to the item. That said, do not promote products that are not relevant to the piece just for the sake of promotion. Doing so could damage a store’s credibility in the consumer’s eyes.

Employ Social Proof

Social proof has become a necessity in the eCommerce industry. With all the shady dealings that are happening online, consumers want to know that what they are getting is the real deal.

Therefore, including social proof within content and on product pages is a powerful strategy for increasing conversions and encouraging that elusive second purchase.

Some excellent forms of social proof that can be deployed in content or on product pages include:

• Testimonials
• Reviews
• User-generated content from social media

By providing the evidence that other customers love their purchase, others are more likely to follow the same path.

Utilize Visuals

Visuals are a critical element for content.

Including images throughout blogs dramatically increases the readability of the piece and helps consumers to retain more of the information contained therein. The fact is, nobody likes reading massive walls of text.

Therefore, several ways that merchants can increase the readability of a piece and keep it engaging include:

• Using screenshots to demonstrate ideas, topics of discussion or uses of a product
• Employ visual indicators like graphs or charts to highlight figures
• Summarize blog posts using embeddable, easily shared infographics

There are a slew of tools out there for creating such visuals, including Canva, Pablo, Easil and many others.

If merchants are looking to create content that converts, visuals are a must.

Include a Clear Call-to-Action

No matter if merchants are looking to drive traffic to product pages, get readers to share a post or simply generate comments, including a clear, direct call-to-action is vital to meeting that goal.

The fact is that if a merchant wants to achieve something with their content, they often must make it explicit by letting consumers know what step they should take next.

By including a call-to-action at the end of a piece for visitors to check out a product page or other content, retailers are far more likely to generate conversions than if they were to leave consumers to their own devices.

Retarget Content

For retailers who employ tracking pixels, those who visit their site can be retargeted to on Google, through social media and other popular online destinations.

Retargeting is an essential tactic for earning more conversions as consumers have already shown interest in a brand’s offerings–be they content or products.

While some consider retargeting to be an off-putting practice, looking at the facts about retargeting shows that this strategy is extremely useful in reaching consumers, generating sales and optimizing conversion rates.

In today’s attention economy, merchants must remain top-of-mind. Retargeting adverts help them achieve that end.

Final Thoughts

Creating eCommerce content that drives conversions is critical for merchants to compete in the increasingly crowded online retail industry. Moreover, by targeting user intent with such pieces, sellers can reel in new readers and bolster their customer base while still catering to existing shoppers.

For other ways to grow your ecommerce store, check out our list of ecommerce growth tactics.

Utilize the strategies listed above to help ensure that your company’s content earns the visibility it needs to generate clicks and conversions from shoppers–new and old. Don't have enough time to start a blog? Check out our ecommerce customer service automation guide to see how you can save time by automating many of the repetitive tasks that go into running an online store.

TL;DR:

• Ecommerce automation replaces manual processes and can improve productivity and growth.
• Automation can streamline workflows, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction.
• Eight ecommerce tasks that should be automated include aspects of customer service, sales scheduling, product rollouts, fraud prevention, inventory management, email marketing, accounting, and web development.
• Automation should be used to enhance, not replace, customer relationships.

No matter how small or large your operation is, you probably have hundreds of small tasks that only take just a few minutes out of your day. On their own, these manual tasks don’t appear to be huge time-wasters. However, when they accumulate, they may end up wasting a full hour.

What falls into these time-wasters? Well, it can be anything from small tweaks to your ecommerce platform, to running email campaigns and sending follow-up messages to your customers. All of these tasks, when taken lightly, can become dangerous. 

In fact, these small tasks can destroy your productivity and hinder the growth of your business. As Deloitte recommends, you have to avoid wasting time on insignificant tasks and focus all of your attention on fundamentally improving your operation.

That’s where automation comes into play. In this article, we’re going to talk about the following three things:

• What automation means for ecommerce businesses
• How you can benefit from automating tasks
• Which tasks you need to automate

What is ecommerce automation?

Ecommerce automation is when businesses implement tools to replace manual processes. For ecommerce specifically, this might mean sending an automatic response to common questions like "where is my order," automatically generating order updates (like shipping and delivery), offering additional product suggestions at checkout, or sending a welcome email to first time customers.

Benefits of ecommerce automation

Automation can help you streamline ecommerce tasks while still maintaining a human touch. It also helps teams keep track of inventory, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, lower first response time, and eliminate tedious or repetetive answers for your customer support team.

1. Streamline workflows

Everyone has a routine. Your employees do too. But insignificant tasks don’t need to be a part of it. Roughly 25% of employees simply want to “do their jobs.” Use automation to give your employees an opportunity to do their jobs and improve satisfaction rates. 

2. Reduce costs

Without spending an hour or two easily-allocatable jobs, your employees can concentrate on working on their tasks and getting things done on time. That will eliminate the need for working overtime and, in turn, save your company a good amount of money. 

3. Increase customer satisfaction

Your employees won’t be the only ones feeling more satisfied than ever. More than a third of consumers feel that response time is the most important aspect of customer service. By automating customer services (including adding customer self-service options), you’ll ensure high satisfaction rates among shoppers. 

8 ecommerce tasks you need to automate

By now, you’ve hopefully realized just how useful automation can be. Regardless of the size and type of your online store, some processes need to be automated as soon as possible. 

1. Customer service

The biggest difference between traditional and automated customer service is that the latter can work 24/7, gather real-time feedback, and provide answers instantly, usually through features in your helpdesk. All of this can improve your customers’ experience immensely. 

For example, luxury shoe and garment care retailer Kirby Allison's support team was inundated with simple, repetitive questions like, “Where is my order?” or, “What kind of shoe polish do I need?” Plus, they were processing exchanges and returns manually. The time loss meant a slower response time, and limited business growth because the team had little time to tackle anything else.

Once they implemented Gorgias Automate, which resolves basic CX requests with AI and automation, they saw 23% more conversions, 46% more sales from support, and 30% of tickets deflected by automation.

“Now my support agents can focus on the most important tickets,” says Addison Debter, their Head of Customer Service. “And I can focus on developing the website, inventory management, and updating product information — growth aspects that would historically have been put on the back burner because of the heavy manual workload.”

2. Sales schedule

In the past, having a sale every few months was the standard. Now, most online stores have weekend sales almost every month. It’s no wonder why more than 60% of salespeople feel that selling is much harder today than it was just a couple of years ago. 

Now you’re forced to have frequent sales as well -- just to compete with other stores. While having a sale may seem like a simple thing to an untrained eye, you need to look beneath the surface.

You’ll realize that the automation process has a lot of moving parts:

• Having regular social media posts about it
• Keeping shoppers engaged until the end of it
• Making sure shoppers are hyped with a countdown
• Teasing low prices and items going on sales

Tools like Shop Workflow Automation and Arigato Automation, as well as Shopify Flow - which will get a few more mentions in this piece - can help you here.

3. Product rollouts

Every time you're restocking or adding a new collection of products, you have to treat it like a new product launch. You have to see what platforms you need to target, what consumers to notify, at what time, and deal with many other aspects. 

Even something simple like a product rollout requires much preparation. A lack of preparedness is the biggest problem an online store can encounter.

The promotion starts on your website. And you want people to know about new products right away, right? Then you can use a heatmap tool like Crazy Egg to get an idea of where to place ads on your site. It will help you see what’s working, what's not, and give you new ideas. 

4. Fraud prevention

Although few people today fall for “Nigerian Prince” schemes, credit card fraud is still a big problem on the Internet. The ecommerce industry loses over $12 billion every year due to fraud. And there are many types of ecommerce fraud. 

That’s why order management is a tricky task for so many employees. 

If you want to eliminate human error out of the equation, you should try Shopify’s risk analysis tools. The tool verifies every order that comes to your dashboard through address verification, IP address check, and other business processes. 

In the video below, you can hear Eric Bandholtz of Beardbrand and Brett Burns explain how they use Shopify Flow to filter out fraudulent orders:

5. Inventory management

Managing your inventory is not something many of your workers look forward to. Of course, if you don’t keep track of your stock, you won’t be able to know what items need to be restocked or to communicate effectively with your suppliers.

And the last thing you want is more supply management problems. 

A lack of inventory management can also lead to lower sales and lost revenue. That’s why you need to oversee products coming in and out of your company. This may be time-consuming, but you can use an inventory management platform to make things easier.

You need a platform that will help you manage the supply chain more carefully, assess your stock, and keep your suppliers in tune at every moment. 

6. Email marketing

When it comes to your ecommerce store, email is one of the most powerful tools you have. It can help you with cross-selling efforts, customer retention rates, and of course, your marketing strategy. Automating email marketing makes a lot of sense. You don’t want to spend hours writing and sending out emails to your shoppers.

But many businesses fail to realize this. 

In fact, in the United States, less than 5% of companies with more than 20 workers apparently use any marketing automation at all. You can’t allow your company to not leverage marketing automation. 

Businesses that have embraced ecommerce automation tools and improved their email strategies have managed to increase their conversion rates by up to 77%. So what should you look for in an email marketing automation tool? 

Here are a few things to consider:

• The ability to send welcome emails to new customers
• Behavioral triggers that lower shopping cart abandonment rates
• Post-purchase engagement emails with order notifications

Recommended reading: Ecommerce Email Automation Series for Online Stores

7. Accounting

When you were just starting your own online business, you probably didn’t think too much about accounting. It’s one of those aspects of a business that doesn’t require too much focus in the beginning, when you’re not making too much. 

But as your business grows, that changes completely. 

Hiring an accountant is a great idea unless you’re just starting and you don’t have enough money for it. If that’s the case with you, you need an alternative solution. Fortunately, studies have shown that you can actually automate 50% of accounting-related tasks. 

There’s plenty of tools for you to choose from. And they can help you with everything from managing your funds to invoicing and keeping track of supplies. 

Some of the most widely used accounting platforms include: 

• FreshBooks
• QuickBooks

8. Web development

The look of your website accounts for 75% of your brand’s credibility with users. That means every aspect - from design and graphics to easy-of-use and navigation - needs to be running smoothly. And that also means that you need to have someone overlooking everything. 

Working on a tight, calculated budget can make having a 24-hour on-deck team for these kinds of problems next to impossible. However, you can still have all of the minor problems under control with the use of automation. 

Small theme changes, action-oriented visuals, and pop-up banners can all be handled without the developers’ involvement with a bit of help from Shopify Flow. You should only call in the big guns when you got a real problem on your hands.  

Automate tasks, not relationships

A little automation can go a long way but try not to overdo it, especially when it comes to ecommerce automation. You can’t use automation as an excuse to ignore customer support completely. If you start completely relying on robots to communicate with your customers, you’ll start losing them. 

Here’s what you need to keep in mind about automation:

• There’s a ton of software out there for eliminating inconsequential tasks
• Automation is there to help you think about the high-value aspects of your business 
• You have a number of repetitive tasks that require automation ASAP so start with those

If you want to give your brand a human feel, you need to treat your customers right. And you can’t treat them right without the right tools. Sign up for Gorgias today and get a 7-day free trial.

Customer churn (or customer attrition) is a vital metric among subscription-as-a-service (SaaS) SaaS companies and other subscription-based businesses (think Netflix). However, your online store — whether or not you have a subscription-based product — can use churn rate as a way to understand and reduce the rate at which you lose business. 

In recent years, ecommerce businesses have realized that rising customer acquisition costs (CAC) have limited the value of new customers. Constantly chasing new customers through expensive ad spend and marketing strategies does not lead to sustainable revenue. 

Instead, ecommerce brands have started investing in their customer experience to make existing customers happy, generate more reviews and referrals, and help their bottom line. Data of Gorgias customers shows that repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, but generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. That’s why improving your repeat customer rate, not just your acquisition rate, should be a top priority.

In this article, we discuss what customer churn is, why it’s important for your online business, and how you can calculate and reduce your churn — thus growing a larger, more resilient company. 

{{lead-magnet-1}}

What is ecommerce churn rate?

Ecommerce churn rate is the percentage of lost customers your business sees over a given period of time. 

Customer churn is a more common metric for SaaS businesses and other subscription-based business models than it is for most ecommerce stores. That’s because those business models can easily spot the moment when an active customer cancels their subscription, or churns. 

But online stores without subscription models can approximate customer churn by looking into customer behavior metrics like:

• Negative feedback and customer complaints
• Repeat purchases or lower purchase frequency
• Reduced customer satisfaction (CSAT) or net promoter score (NPS) 

Formula for calculating customer churn rate

To perform your churn rate calculation, you need to gather a few numbers. First, you need the total number of customers who were with your business at the beginning of the specific time frame you’re analyzing — this could be at the beginning of a month to calculate monthly churn rate. Next, you need the number of customers that were with your business at the end of the time period you’re analyzing. 

For example, if you are trying to calculate churn over a one-month period, you need the number of customers at the beginning of that month, and the number of customers at the end of that month. Once you have these two numbers, you can plug them into this customer churn rate formula:

[(customers at the beginning of the time period - customers at the end of the time period) / customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = customer churn rate (%)

Here’s an example of how this could look:

[(5,000 customers on 1st of month - 4,800 customers on 31st of month) / 5,000] x 100 = 4% churn rate

What is revenue churn rate? 

Revenue churn rate is a metric that measures changes in your store’s incoming revenue from existing customers. For businesses that sell standalone products rather than subscription-based products, revenue churn may be a more accurate indicator of your ability to retain business.

Revenue churn rate is also easier to conceptualize and measure because you’re measuring changes in revenue from existing customers, which is a clear-cut number for every type of store, not changes in existing customers themselves. 

You can look into your gross revenue churn rate, which just measures the amount of revenue lost from existing customers, or net revenue churn rate, which also factors in the amount of money gained from existing customers.

Formula for calculating revenue churn rate

To determine your net revenue churn rate for a given month, find your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) — or the incoming revenue you got from existing customers — at the beginning of the month and subtract that from your MRR end of the month. Divide that amount by the total MRR at the beginning of the month:

[(revenue from customer at the beginning of the time period - revenue from customers at the end of the time period) / revenue from customers at the beginning of the time period] x 100 = revenue churn rate (%)

If you want to find your gross revenue churn rate, subtract any upsells, upgrades, or other additional revenue from existing customers when calculating your MRR at the end of the month. 

Remember: Do not include any revenue from new customers during this time period. Churn rate calculates the amount of revenue you lost from repeat business, not the total change in revenue. 

{{lead-magnet-2}}

Why ecommerce businesses should make churn a priority KPI

We already explained that customer retention is make-or-break for online stores because, while repeat customers account for only 21% of customers, they generate 44% of revenue and 46% of orders. By conducting churn analysis and lowering your churn rate, you’ll increase the long-term revenue, or customer lifetime value (LTV), of each new customer that makes a purchase.

Repeat purchases are just the tip of the iceberg. If you can deliver a customer experience that produces loyal customers, you can also expect more reviews and referrals, larger cart values at checkout, more opportunities for upgrades and upsells, and higher-quality feedback to continue making your product and customer experience even better. 

For a deeper dive into the connection between customer experience and revenue, check out our playbook for CX-Driven Growth. 

Understanding a healthy churn rate for ecommerce brands

A good churn rate is difficult to benchmark for ecommerce because, as we mentioned, most ecommerce stores are not subscription-based. Beyond that, some ecommerce stores are a better fit for repeat business than others. For example, a company that sells coffee beans will naturally experience more repeat business than a company that sells coffee machines, because most households only need one machine but will regularly need new beans.

However, Omniconvert analyzed data from over 1,000 online stores to give a sense of the average churn rate for ecommerce, or the rate at which customers return to an online store after their initial purchase. The following numbers show the % of customers that were not retained, meaning they purchased at least one item but did not come back to purchase additional items, over a year-long span: 

• Beauty and fitness: 62% churn rate
• People and society: 63% churn rate
• Food and drinks: 64% churn rate
• Health: 65% churn rate
• Books at literature: 69% churn rate
• Pets and animals: 70% churn rate
• Sports: 70% churn rate
• Apparel: 71% churn rate
• Home and garden: 75% churn rate
• Toys and hobbies: 77% churn rate
• Shoes: 78% churn rate
• Apparel clothing accessories: 79% churn rate
• Consumer electronics: 82% churn rate
• Gifts and special events: 82% churn rate

These metrics may help you understand how your churn rate compares to your customers. However, if your churn rate doesn’t stack up, don’t be discouraged: the biggest challenge is to continually improve your own metrics, not necessarily outpace your competitors — at least in the short term. By optimizing your store and focusing on lowering your churn rate month after month, you’ll develop a highly competitive score in due time.

7 ways to reduce ecommerce churn rates

It may be impossible to get your company’s churn rate to zero, but it is important to make sure it stays as low as possible. As mentioned earlier, it can be tricky for ecommerce businesses to address churn, unless you’re a subscription business. Luckily, there are still some strategies you can employ to help reduce your churn rate that lean heavily on understanding your customer base and emphasizing a great customer experience. 

1) Segment customers to target the right people at the right time

A large part of addressing churn is having a deep understanding of your customers and their unique desires. For many businesses, there are major differences within the customer base and segment that customer base helps you personalize your marketing and customer experience. This way, everyone who visits your site, receives a message, or makes a purchase gets a tailored experience.

You can segment customers along many axes including (but nowhere near limited to): 

• Items they purchase
• When they make purchases
• The volume of their purchases
• Demographic factors

These customer segments help you send targeted advertisements, reduce irrelevant or repetitive messages, and provide tailored support. 

If you use Gorgias for ecommerce customer service, the integration with Klayvio can help you create better customer segments based on support interactions. For example, you could exclude anyone with an open support ticket from marketing emails, or send a targeted win-back campaign to customers who rate their support experience poorly. Both of these examples could be great ways to rescue at-risk relationships all along the customer journey, reducing lost customers for your brand.

Learn more about how the Klayvio and Gorgias integration unites your customer experience platform with your segmentation and personalization. 

2) Collect feedback from customers on a regular basis

Another way to address a high churn rate is to regularly collect feedback from your customers. Customer feedback can teach you a lot about what your customers expect.

If you use Gorgias, you can automatically send CSAT surveys after every support interaction to get real-time feedback from customers. On top of CSAT, we recommend collecting net promoter score (NPS) and conducting periodic long-form interviews with your most engaged customers to understand what’s working and what could be improved.

Once you collect customer feedback, there are a number of things you can do next. Here are some to think about:

Ask fans of the company to write reviews, or create a referral program

Once you begin to gather positive feedback from customers, you may think about creating a campaign to field reviews or even create a referral program. It’s not exactly ethical to outwardly ask customers to write good reviews, but if they rate your company highly, there’s nothing wrong with thanking them and asking if they’d be interested in sharing their experience with others. 

If you use Gorgias, integrations with tools like Yotpo and LoyaltyLion can build a simple review and referral program into your customer experience platform. Both integrations help you deliver a special customer experience to your most valuable customers and generate more reviews and loyalty as a result.  

Thank the customer for their feedback (positive or negative)

Once you’ve heard from a large group of customers, be sure to respond to each customer and thank them for their feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. 

Perhaps even consider offering them a promo code as a “thank you” that can be used on their next purchase. For customers that specifically had negative feedback, be sure to follow up to address the issue.

Here, we set up a Macro, or a templated response, for customers who have left negative reviews with the help of the Yotpo integration:

Share feedback with other teams to implement larger improvements to your product and CX

Once you collect feedback, you need to make sure it gets to the team that can actually implement it. We see so many customer support teams sitting on a gold mine of customer feedback without a system to disseminate it across the company. Whenever possible, reiterate to your company’s leadership that your team speaks to customers more than just about anyone, and other teams should be hungry for those insights. 

With Gorgias, you can auto-tag tickets with categories of feedback so that you can quickly and easily sort, quantify, and digest feedback about the product, shipping, website, or anything else. Autotagging involves a combination of Intent Detection, which analyzes the words in each ticket to automatically detect the category of issue, and automated Rules, which give each ticket a tag based on the intent (like “feedback-product”).

And, since Gorgias’ pricing model doesn’t charge for extra seats, you can even invite members from each of those teams into the helpdesk and create a special view that only shows tickets tagged with the relevant type of feedback so they can see exactly what customers have said about their specific function within your business.

3) Use omnichannel and proactive customer service strategies

Great customer support reduces churn by helping customers avoid and solve issues that would have otherwise driven them away from your brand. We write a lot about what makes great customer support, but here we’ll focus on one central idea: reducing customer effort. 

Reducing customer effort means that customers don’t have to search hard for ways to contact support or wait a long time for an answer. Two specific strategies stand out to give customers convenient, fast support:

First is omnichannel customer service, which is all about letting customers get in touch with you in whichever channel they prefer, in the least bumpy and disjointed way possible. Whether customers want to call, text, or message you on Instagram — or a combination of all three — they shouldn’t have to re-explain the problem. This kind of meet-them-where-they-are support is the new baseline for customer service, and anything less may drive customers away.

Second is proactive customer support, which can look like welcoming new customers with a DM on social media, asking if website visitors have any questions via your live chat, or setting up self-service resources like an FAQ page on your website. All three of these options give customers more opportunities to raise questions, get recommendations, and have a satisfying shopping experience without too much effort.

‎Read more: How omnichannel communication can drive revenue & boost customer loyalty

4) Introduce loyalty-building campaigns and strategies

A final way you can help reduce churn is by introducing loyalty-building campaigns and strategies. This further builds upon understanding the various segments of your customer base and what each group wants. Some specific campaigns you can tap into include rewards programs, giveaways, and user-generated content (UGC).

Use rewards programs to incentivize repeat shopping

If you don’t have a customer loyalty program already (otherwise known as a rewards program), you may want to consider it. This type of program rewards customers who repeatedly interact with your brand and is a customer retention strategy. In basic terms, the more a customer interacts with your business, the more rewards they earn. This is most commonly seen through offering points for every dollar a customer spends, then being able to cash those points in for various rewards. 

Nearly 68% of customers said they’d join a loyalty program for brands they like, and 56% of that group said they were willing to spend more with a brand — even if there are cheaper options available — according to Yotpo’s State of Brand Loyalty 2021 Survey.

The more loyalty points a customer has with your brand, the harder it will be for them to churn.

Run giveaways to build customer loyalty

Just like a rewards program, giveaways can improve brand sentiment and help attract and retain customers. 

Here are some helpful tips to consider when creating your brand’s giveaway campaign: 

• Have a clear goal. Do you want more social proof or do you want to build awareness around a new product?
• Clearly state the rules of the giveaway. Being unclear in your explanation of a giveaway can result in negative experiences for potential customers, so be clear and concise in your explanation of the rules. 
• Be strategic with the entrance to the giveaway. If you are looking to boost your business’s Instagram following, have the entrance criteria for the giveaway be to follow your brand on Instagram. If you want to generate a lot of new email subscribers to expand the sales funnel, require a subscription to your brand’s emails. 
• Choose a prize that your audience would love. Just about anyone would like a new iPhone or a $100 Visa gift card, but those types of prizes won’t necessarily bring in quality potential customers. Choose a gift that is either a product from your company, or within the same industry. 

Use user-generated content (UGC) to engage current and new customers

User-generated content is a win-win: It celebrates your current customers while serving as social proof for new ones. Ask paying customers to send a photo or video of them using the product to share on your website or social media. For additional incentive, you can compensate chosen submissions with a gift card or discount code — all of which bring those customers even closer to your brand.

Meanwhile, that content will serve as marketing for new website visitors. Over half (51%) of consumers in a survey by Olapic and Cite Research said they “trust user images because they are more authentic and trustworthy than brand-owned assets.” So, if you haven’t implemented UGC strategies, it may be time to give them a try in order to engage new and current customers while contributing to a lower customer churn rate. 

5) Implement systems to stop involuntary churn

Voluntary churn, when a customer decides to cancel their subscription or stop buying products, isn’t the only type of churn. Involuntary churn, also called passive churn, occurs when customer orders don’t go through and nobody notices or cares to find the reason. Usually, involuntary churn is because a customer got a new credit card and didn’t update your information.‍

If you sell a subscription-based product, avoid these passive cancellations by creating a process to follow-up with customers after their card fails on a renewal date:

1. Run the card multiple times to ensure the error wasn’t a fluke
2. Send an automated email sequence from various members of your support team to remind the customer to update their card to continue the subscription
3. Escalate the outreach to SMS if the customer still doesn’t respond or update the card
4. Export the contact and build a list of involuntarily churned customers to conduct a separate win-back email sequence

According to data from our CX Growth Playbook, reducing involuntary churn is a low-lift initiative that could boost your revenue by .05%. To learn about 17 other improvements to your customer experience that can boost revenue, check out the full playbook.

6) Improve your post-purchase experience

Your post-purchase experience is everything that the customer sees (or doesn’t see) after they complete a purchase, like a page that appears confirming the purchase and the follow-up confirmation. Think of your post-purchase experience as your onboarding from new customers to existing customers.

A poor post-purchase experience leaves first-time customers wary about your brand and confused about what to expect next: When will the product arrive? How long can I get a refund? Did they get my address right? All of these could be factors in a customer's decision not to return to your brand. 

Take a look at our guide to post-purchase experience, which includes tips like:

• Deliver important how-to and use case content
• Provide plenty of opportunities for feedback (and ask directly)
• Invite customers to join your brand communities

7) Encourage exchanges instead of returns

Exchanges are preferable over returns for a couple of reasons. First, an exchange is much less expensive for your brand since the customer still pays for a product, even if you have to cover the extra shipping. Second, exchanges are better for customer relationships because you still give customers an opportunity to fall in love with your product and, hopefully, stick around instead of churning. 

You can steer customers toward an exchange by offering additional trade-in credit for exchanges. Loop Returns makes this simple within their returns and exchanges portal:

This strategy is effective: Shopify stores that use Loop issue 15% fewer refunds than brands that don’t.

Learn how the Gorgias + Loop integration unites your helpdesk and returns management software. 

You can also add live chat support on your returns portal page, which gives your customer support team an opportunity to resolve whatever issues drove them to the page or suggest a replacement product.

Even if a customer requests a return, make the experience as easy and fast as possible. Even if you lose one sale, a great experience may make it more likely for the customer to come back for the next. Whereas a bad experience guarantees they’re gone for good. 

To make returns as fast as possible, use a helpdesk that integrates with your ecommerce platform so you can issue a refund directly in the helpdesk. 

Learn how Gorgias makes refunds quick and easy thanks to a deep integration with Shopify.

Lower your churn rate – and other key KPIs – with Gorgias

Since you landed on this article, you might be in the process of creating a system to measure and improve your brand’s ability to satisfy customers and generate repeat business. If that’s true, check out our guides to evaluating your customer service program, gauging your customer support team’s return on investment (ROI), or our list of ecommerce KPIs your brand should track.

And as your brand continues to grow, keep a close eye on the customer experience you offer your customers. While some brands treat customer experience more like a vibe than an essential growth strategy, we know that CX and revenue are closely linked. 

Want to learn more about how to turn your customer support team into a profit center? Book a demo and see Gorgias, the helpdesk designed for ecommerce growth, in action. 

Let’s keep it real:

Growing an ecommerce store can be difficult. You need to consistently compete to attract customers to your website and win sales.

There are so many business decisions that you need to make, from product selection to logistics to marketing. 

That’s why it’s so important to study every facet of running an ecommerce business. It will allow you to stay on top of your game at all times. 

One of the best ways to learn more about the ecommerce industry is to join an ecommerce community.

Want to take your ecommerce career to the next level? Keep reading.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

What Are Ecommerce Communities and Why Do They Matter?

Ecommerce communities are specialized online communities dedicated to ecommerce businesses.

These communities are meant to be a gathering place for ecommerce professionals where they can meet, share what they have learned, and get advice. 

Some of these communities exist as standalone online forums, some of them as subforums of large online discussion platforms, and some as user groups on social media networks.

Some of them are free for everyone to join, some are exclusive to paying members.

But whatever the particular setup is, the aim of all these ecommerce communities remains the same: helping ecommerce professionals connect and learn from each other.

By the way, if you're just starting your online store, check out our ecommerce launch checklist to make sure you cover all your bases.

Why Should You Join an Online Ecommerce Community?

Joining an ecommerce community can help you grow your ecommerce knowledge and make your sales soar.

Here’s how...

1) Peer Effect & Feedback

Ecommerce communities are full of ambitious, hard-working, motivated ecommerce professionals who are passionate about selling online.

Hanging out with fellow online merchants will fuel your ambition, inspire you to work harder, gather ideas that will gain more sales and keep you motivated day in and day out. Especially if you can find a community dedicated to your specific ecommerce niche.

In fact, studies have shown that when performance feedback is received, it has both a cognitive and a positive motivational impact on individuals. 

2) Mutual Help

Mistakes are unavoidable.

But they are also expensive.

And they can seriously set back the growth of your ecommerce store if you make the wrong decision and implement an incorrect strategy. 

That’s why it makes sense to ask for advice when you have to make an important business decision.

When you are a member of an online ecommerce community, you can post a question and get various perspectives. This can help you see the situation in a new way.

Moreover, these communities are often frequented by seasoned ecommerce professionals, which means that you can get advice from people who have achieved more than you.

3) Build Relationships

You have probably heard the saying:

“It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.”

And while it may be an exaggeration since your actual skills are definitely important, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of truth in that phrase.

Relationships with the right people can lead to:

• New business ideas
• Lucrative collaborations and partnerships
• Mentorships that accelerate your progress

...and more.

But you can’t just go about your daily life expecting to somehow bump into the right people by accident. You need to get out there and proactively build your network.

And what could be a better place to start than an ecommerce community that’s full of ecommerce professionals just like you?

4) Accountability

To grow your ecommerce store, you need to go above and beyond your customer’s expectations. That’s how you will stand out from everyone else.

But this can be easier said than done. You want to show initiative, you want to prove how excellent your products are, you want to add value… But the competition can be fierce, especially since there are currently 7.9 million online retailers in the world and 2.1 million of them are in the United States.

That’s where joining an ecommerce community can help as well. You can keep yourself accountable by announcing your extra-curricular project and then posting progress updates. You can even get an accountability buddy with whom you can check in with.

Social pressure is an extremely powerful thing. No one wants their store to fail. So make yourself accountable and start getting things done. 

{{lead-magnet-2}}

The Best Ecommerce Communities

Okay, so now that you understand how joining an online ecommerce community can help you gain ecommerce knowledge and perform better, let’s take a closer look at some of the best ecommerce communities out there.

Shopify Plus Community

The Shopify Plus Community is an official Shopify Facebook group. It currently has 7.1k members. It is a closed group and you can only become a member if you are a Shopify Plus Merchant.  

It’s a great place to access and network with other growth-minded business leaders who have already scaled their ecommerce store. 

You will be able to discuss experiences and strategies with high-volume merchants that will help you not only survive in the commerce world, but thrive. 

Members are also known to provide recommendations of the tools they use that help them achieve sucess, like push notification apps and multi-channel helpdesks. This will help you avoid the trial and error phase that inevitably comes along with trying new software that you need for your ecommerce store.

Ecommerce Elites Mastermind

This is a private Facebook group that was created by ecommerce entrepreneurs Steve and Evan Tan who have built several million dollar stores.

This is a large and active ecommerce community that has 107k+ members at the time of writing. 

It’s a great place to discuss any ecommerce topics, like Shopify/Magento tips, Facebook ads, social media marketing, and conversions. But it’s especially useful if you need advice on international ecommerce as there are a lot of members from outside the U.S.

Shopify Ecommerce Group

Shopify Ecommerce Group is an unofficial Shopify public Facebook group for ecommerce professionals who use Shopify. It has 29k+ members at the time of writing.

You can get help on various topics related to the Shopify platform, from using the core software to various helpful apps to conversion optimization tips.

You don’t need to join the group to browse the posts, so you can check them out and see if you find them useful before you commit to joining the community.

Ecom Empires

Ecom Empires is a private Facebook group created by Nick Peroni for ecommerce professionals. It has 97k+ members at the time of writing.

Here you can find discussions on a wide variety of ecommerce topics, from software to logistics to marketing. Whatever your question is, the chances are that someone on the Ecom Empires group has an answer. 

Shopify Entrepreneurs

Shopify Entrepreneurs is another unofficial private Facebook group that caters to ecommerce professionals who use Shopify. It has 106k+ members at the moment of writing.

It is full of a diverse group of people, from Shopify store managers, store owners and expert service providers that include marketers, designers and developers.

This makes it a great place to get feedback on Shopify stores, but keep in mind that the moderators need to approve each post manually. Not all posts get approved. 

Although this may seem like an unnecessary hurdle when you want to ask a question, it also means that the content quality remains high. 

The Ecommerce Marketing Community

The Ecommerce Marketing Community is designed to connect ecommerce founders who are growing their brands from $0 to $1 million in sales. They bring in ecommerce experts every month for a monthly AMA, along with having daily posts sharing what founders are learning. With over 1,200 members, the community is growing every day and the perfect place to share e-commerce marketing tips you're using to grow your brand.

WooCommerce Community

WooCommerce Community is the official WooCommerce ecommerce platform Facebook group. It has 40k+ members at the time of writing. It was created to help online merchants with features and functionality of their WooCommerce store.

It’s one of the best places online to get answers to questions related to WooCommerce software. It also provides an opportunity for WP developers and WooCommerce euthanists to connect and discuss ideas. 

Cener Ecommerce Mastermind

Cener Ecommerce Mastermind is a private Facebook group for ecommerce professionals that has 52k+ members at the time of writing.

It was founded by a successful ecommerce entrepreneur Justin Cener who has built and sold a 7-figure ecommerce business. It was originally a closed Facebook group made specifically for Justin’s clients.

It’s a great place for online merchants who want to gain ecommerce knowledge as he still hangs around and answers as many questions as he can.

Ecommerce Entrepreneurs

Ecommerce Entrepreneurs is a private Facebook group that is affiliated with the popular website A Better Lemonade Stand.

It’s an active community that has strict rules and is heavily moderated. 

They only accept users that:

• Have been active on Facebook for over a year
• Have valid profile photos
• Belong to less than 50 Facebook groups

You will need a password to access the group, which you will get immediately after reading and agreeing to the group rules. 

Ecommerce Fuel Forum

Ecommerce Fuel Forum is an exclusive online community for 7-figure ecommerce business owners.

This is probably the best place for successful ecommerce entrepreneurs to network with other successful ecommerce entrepreneurs.

You will need to apply and pass the vetting process to join this community, but it’s worth the hassle.

SEO Chat

Does search engine optimization (SEO) feature heavily in your company’s marketing strategy?

Then you may want to check out SEO Chat, an online forum dedicated to the topic of getting organic search traffic from Google.

Being a member of an SEO community can help you stay up to date on the latest SEO strategies and tactics. This is important given the fast-paced, ever-changing landscape of search engine optimization.

Digital Point Ecommerce Forum

Digital Point is a massive online forum that has subforums for pretty much everything related to developing stores, from SEO to pay-per-click advertising to copywriting. It even has subforums for web development and web design!

You may want to check out the ecommerce subforum. At the time of writing, the last message on it is almost a week old, so it’s not particularly active. Still, you can post your question there and see if you get replies. 

Plus, it may be worth your while to browse the archives, since some popular threads have received 1,000+ replies. You may find valuable business insights buried in those discussions!

BigCommerce Forums

BigCommerce is a sophisticated ecommerce platform that provides all the functionality needed for running a medium to large ecommerce business. 

They have an official online forum where anyone can ask questions related to ecommerce in general and BigCommerce software in particular. You will find that the forum is split into various different groups.

Reddit Ecommerce Subreddit

You are probably familiar with Reddit, which is one of the largest online discussion websites in the world.

On it, you can discuss pretty much anything, from cute pet videos to business to politics.

At the moment of writing, the Ecommerce subreddit has over 140k subscribers. You can post your own threads as well as participate in other members’ threads.

It’s a public forum, so the discussion quality can be hit and miss, but if you keep an eye on this subreddit you will almost certainly stumble across some gems (detailed case studies that companies share are especially valuable).

Reddit allows you to sort posts by popularity over a certain time period, which is a handy feature if you want to quickly check the most upvoted posts of the day, week, month, or year (or even of all time).

Shopify Community

Shopify, one of the most popular ecommerce platforms out there, has its own official forum called Shopify Community.

You can ask questions on a variety of ecommerce topics, from the technical stuff to store design to marketing to payments to selling internationally.

There is even a subforum focused on the social impact of ecommerce where people can discuss how to grow sustainable and socially conscious brands.

Plus, there’s also a subforum specifically dedicated to feedback requests, so if you want feedback on a Shopify store, that’s the place to go to. 

Shopify Community is an active online forum. At the time of writing, the latest messages in quite a few subforums were posted less than half an hour ago, in some cases as little as 3 minutes ago. 

So if you want to get answers to your Shopify questions, you should definitely check out this ecommerce community.

Gorgias Community

Gorgias Community is an official group created and managed by the team at Gorgias. It is a closed group that only existing Gorgias customers can join. 

The group is a place where customer support teams can collaborate and share ideas on training, strategy, tactics and more. Being an active member of this Facebook group will help you take your ecommerce store’s customer support to the next level.

Since it and covers all types of customer support topics, it is a great place where you can share your successes and help others in the ecommerce community solve their problems too.

Wrapping Up

Ecommerce communities are places where you can find inspiration, learn the latest tactics, and network with other ecommerce professionals.

They are an ideal place where online merchants will find invaluable information that will help them take their ecommerce store to the next level.

We recommend that you not only join ecommerce communities, but be active in them. You won’t regret it.

If you own an ecommerce store, you’re undoubtedly already familiar with the term “conversion rate.” It’s arguably the single most important metric in ecommerce: Without a high conversion rate, all your web traffic, brand awareness, and marketing dollars never turn into revenue.

We’ve invited one of our agency partners and European CRO Agency of the Year 2022, Swanky, to share their expertise on the key ingredients of a successful CRO strategy.

What is CRO in ecommerce?

Ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the strategy of gradually improving the user experience on your site to turn more browsers into buyers. At the highest level, CRO is all about identifying areas of opportunity to convert throughout the customer journey and continually A/B testing small tweaks.

The benefits of CRO for your ecommerce business

Of course, the ultimate goal of CRO is to improve your bottom line. However, there are plenty of ways to do this, and CRO can be used across many elements of your business to optimize every part of your activity. 

Some of the benefits of CRO include:

• Drive traffic and sales volume: Improve your customer acquisition and click-through rate to bring more customers to your store
• Reduce cart abandonment: Identify and eliminate the barriers to purchase so that more customers make it through checkout
• Increase your average order value (AOV): Use upselling, product bundles, recommendations, and other tactics to increase the amount spent on each order  
• Boost the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of your customers through loyalty programs that encourage customers to return again and again
• Improve your marketing ROI: Test the effect of each campaign, to optimize future campaigns and analyze results to inform where to channel your future marketing budget
• Encourage advocacy: Get your customers to sell your products for you by incentivizing referrals and positive customer reviews
• Reduce overheads: Increase the availability of your support team to answer urgent pre-sales questions by learning from your customer data, so that you can streamline your support processes 

How to build an ecommerce CRO strategy

Swanky helps ecommerce businesses around the world boost their sales revenue through effective CRO strategies. When we work with ecommerce brands, we build and run CRO strategies in six stages (and recommend you do the same).

These stages form a circular process that continues indefinitely, as you continually learn from your results, shift your focus, and make further improvements.

1) Define your goals

The first step of the CRO process is to define your goals. While people use the term “optimize” to mean “improve,” the correct usage is to optimize for something, be it more page views, sign-ups, or purchases.

• Are you looking to build your email list and improve customer retention?
• Do you need to raise profit margins by increasing your AOV?
• Do you want to target new customers, or focus on returning shoppers?

Every business will have different priorities, and these priorities will inform what changes you will need to make to your customer experience.

If you’re just getting started with CRO for the first time, consider testing and optimizing your checkout flow. 70% of all carts get abandoned during checkout, many of which are due to a poor checkout experience. While this isn’t a catch-all solution for every brand, most see a healthy lift in purchase rate by optimizing their checkout flow for completed purchases.

2) Analyze your existing data

Before you begin making any changes to your site, you need a clear picture of how your customers are currently progressing through your funnel. A deep analysis of your data will allow you to spot pain points along the customer journey. This helps you focus your efforts on areas likely to have the greatest impact.

The customer journey can be broken down into various stages:

• Discovery: The research phase, when the customer learns about or looks for a product, service, or business. This is the stage where they need to be attracted. 
• Engagement: Where the customer seeks further information about the product or service. This is after they’ve been attracted but need to be sold to. 
• Purchase: Where the customer purchases the product, through a seamless and enjoyable checkout experience, from start to finish, online and offline. 
• Loyalty: When the customer is most likely to be willing to form an ongoing relationship, place repeat purchases, and promote your brand to friends and family. 

Besides your ecommerce platform, you can collect data from various sources, such as Google Analytics and Search Console, CRM data, online marketplaces, and so on, as well as a range of other tools such as Crazy Egg or HumCommerce.

For more in-depth analysis you can use customer exit surveys and heat mapping to get a better picture of your customers’ onsite behavior, as well as their motivation for failing to convert during a site visit. 

‍📚 Related reading: Learn how to collect and implement customer feedback from your helpdesk.

3) Build a hypothesis

Once you have collated all your customer insight, you will start to triangulate the pain points throughout your customer journey. Now, you can start to hypothesize on how you might improve your conversion rate.

Of course, you’ll want to use your data to guide your search. If you have one product page that converts three times higher than the rest of your pages, look into the difference to understand what elements of that page you could test on others. 

Conversely, if a significant percentage of carts get abandoned at one step of the checkout process, start looking at that step to understand what could be the conversion barrier.

You might want to consider:

• Which pages are central to your customer journey?
• What are the main things blocking conversions?   
• What changes could you put into place that would help more customers convert? 

Some of these hypotheses will rest on common sense (e.g. a small, hard-to-find email submission box is a likely barrier to email newsletter signups). Others may be inspired by CRO best practices, like the 13 we share below.

If you’re having trouble developing a hypothesis, consider asking a friend to try and sign up for your newsletter, purchase an item, or achieve some other conversion goal. Ask about their experience and watch as they navigate the site. A fresh user’s perspective may help you discover opportunities to re-design webpages, re-organize your website, and use alternative copy.

4) Prioritize your testing roadmap

No doubt you will have a long list of improvements you could make. Some of these will be easy wins — fixes that are quick to implement and highly likely to be effective. Others may be more complex to implement, usually requiring support from a developer, with less guarantee of having a meaningful impact. 

You will therefore want to start prioritizing your ideas for improvement, identifying low-hanging fruit that is likely to bring you the most immediate impact. When in doubt, fall back on the goals you established in the first step. Your results will be easier to interpret if you test against one goal at a time.

📚 Related reading: See our tips on how to build a prioritized testing roadmap for your store.

5) Test one hypothesis at a time

This is the stage where you put your ideas to the test. Using a testing platform such as Optimizely or Kameleoon, build your new variants of the page, segment your audience, and start comparing the results. 

For the most accurate results, you will want to test small changes individually. If you make multiple changes at the same time, it will be impossible to tell which is having an impact. For a concrete example of A/B testing in action, check out Swanky’s CRO experiment for Saltrock, a UK-based surfwear brand.

Here was the original mobile menu, where visitors would get text-only sub-categories after clicking on any of these buttons:

And here was a variant that used blocker shapes and photographs, to increase menu use (measured by an increase in collection page landings, product page landings, and revenue per user). 

Note: While the image below features the same photograph, the test was conducted with actual product photography.

After running this experiment, Swanky found the variant outperformed the original with 76% confidence and helped Saltrock build the polished menu they still use today.

6) Learn from your A/B test

What were the results of your tests? It’s tempting to view A/B testing as a means to simply find the winning result, and to see any change that does not improve conversion rate as a failure. However, the goal of testing is far broader, with one of the main goals being to learn more about your clients. 

Were the results what you expected? Perhaps you saw an increase in transactions but a decrease in AOV as a result. Why do you think this is? Was the impact greater among one demographic than another? Analyzing how your customers respond in different situations will help you to understand them better and serve them with what they need.

This final step of interpretation is in some ways the most important of all as it helps you to improve your strategy and form new ideas. Now you are ready to go back to the start, redefine your goals, draw up some new hypotheses and prioritize what tests to perform next.  

5 tactics to improve CRO for your ecommerce business

1) Implement dynamic checkout buttons on product pages

Dynamic checkout buttons streamline the buying process by allowing customers to skip the cart and go directly to checkout when they're ready to purchase. This reduces the number of steps in the purchasing process and effectively reduces cart abandonment.

To implement, use platform-specific features or plugins that detect the user's preferred payment method (like PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay) and display that option prominently on each product page. Additionally, make sure these buttons function on mobile devices to cater to the growing number of mobile shoppers.

2) Use targeted website campaigns to offer exclusive deals

Targeted on-site campaigns can significantly increase revenue by as much as 284% in five months. You can use campaigns to offer special discounts to first-time visitors or free shipping to customers in regions where you have logistical advantages. 

To implement, use Gorgias Convert to set up specific campaigns for different customer segments. These on-site campaigns can be adjusted based on customer data like location, time spent on a page, and whether or not they’re an existing customer. 

Pro Tip: Ensure your campaigns are timed appropriately. We recommend displaying a campaign 30 seconds after a visitor has browsed a webpage.

Related: How 3 brands boost conversion rate by 15% with Gorgias Convert Campaigns

3) Optimize product pages with user-generated content

Prospective buyers often look for validation from other customers before making a purchase. Incorporating user-generated content or UGC, such as customer reviews, ratings, and a photo gallery, directly on product pages can significantly boost trust and conversion rates. 

To implement, offering incentives like discounts on future purchases in exchange for photo submissions and customer reviews. Make sure the UGC is visible and integrated seamlessly into the product pages for a seamless user experience.

4) Introduce a loyalty program with immediate benefits

Launch a loyalty program that offers immediate benefits to new sign-ups, such as a discount on their first purchase or bonus points redeemable against future orders. This tactic encourages new customers, while increasing retention, average order value, and lifetime value for existing customers. 

Pro Tip: Clearly communicate the benefits of the loyalty program on your homepage, during the checkout process, and in your marketing communications. Use a loyalty program platform like LoyaltyLion to track customer points and manage rewards efficiently.

5) Leverage A/B testing for detailed product descriptions

It's essential to understand what type of information your customers find most valuable. You can do so by A/B testing your product descriptions. 

Start by testing different formats, lengths, and types of information, such as technical specifications versus usage ideas. Then, use analytics to measure the impact of different versions on conversion rate and customer engagement. 

Why A/B testing is the backbone of CRO

Changes to your ecommerce site should always be approached with caution — or more specifically, with A/B testing. While every change to your website has the potential to affect your conversion rate, that difference could be positive or negative. 

For example, you may think a pop-up advertising a new promotion will lead to higher conversion rates. That’s possible, but the intrusive experience of a pop-up may also turn visitors away from your website, lowering conversion rate. 

The only way to know for sure what will improve your conversion rate is to test every change that you make. So before charging ahead with perceived improvements, it is vital to have a testing plan in place. 

The most robust way to test your CRO experiments is through split testing, often referred to as A/B testing. 

Split testing, as the name suggests, splits your audience into two or more segments (segments A, B, and so on). Each of the segments is served a different version of the page when they arrive on your site, although none of your users will be aware of this. The first segment will view the original version of your page — the control — while others will view a variant. 

By measuring the rate of conversion from each segment, as well as a range of other metrics, you can build a clear picture of how each variant impacts your conversion rate. You can then confidently stick with the more effective approach and start A/B testing another element of the page. 

To further improve your data, you can choose to separate segments according to customer type. For example, you might choose to test new visitors compared to returning customers, allowing you to personalize your customer experience for different users and get richer test results.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

Start boosting your ecommerce CRO today

Improving conversions is a complex process, especially if you’re still new to ecommerce. If you’d like a CRO agency to guide you through the process, you can reach out to Swanky to discuss their CRO services.

Additionally, understand that a helpful, responsive, and self-service customer service program is a key ingredient for high conversion. Gorgias is the customer service platform built exclusively for ecommerce, and we help over 10,000 online retailers turn web traffic into happy repeat customers. 

‍Book your demo to learn how Gorgias can help turn your customer service program into a conversion, retention, and revenue-generating machine.

Some customers will arrive on your website, place an order, and move on with their lives. But ideally, given the outsize returns of returning customers, your shoppers also have the option of joining a strong community where they can: 

• Provide feedback that guides product development
• See how other customers use your products
• Engage with relevant (non-sales) content 
• Stay up to date with your brand’s promotions and releases
• Become a fully-fledged brand advocates

Thanks to these customer engagement tactics, a community can lead to better word-of-mouth marketing, referrals, and repeat purchases. According to Gorgias research of over 10,000 ecommerce brands, community building can boost a brand’s revenue by an estimated 6%.

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into all things customer community management: what it entails, the benefits of community marketing at your company, steps you can follow to create a community management strategy, and tips and tricks to use once you’re in the thick of community management. 

What is customer community management?

Customer community management is the ongoing process of building and maintaining an authentic social network among your customers, staff members, and partners. You can host communities in various places: your brand's social media channels, dedicated online forums, or in person at networking events or brand get-togethers. 

{{lead-magnet-1}}

Two examples of great community management from ecommerce brands include 310 Nutrition and Kitsch. 

310 Nutrition sells meal replacement shakes and has a significant member base through their private 310 Nutrition Community Facebook group. There are over 400,000 members that engage in discussions related to the brand but also discuss nutrition and weight loss. It’s a place for like-minded individuals who share a similar goal of becoming healthier:

Beauty accessory and hair care brand Kitsch utilizes a slightly different community management strategy through TikTok. Kitsch has over 45,000 followers on TikTok and focuses on educating about their products, debuting new products, and running giveaways for their loyal fans. The brand does a great job at keeping its TikTok videos authentic and educational, rather than feeling like a salesroom floor:

The many benefits of a sound customer community management strategy

In addition to boosting revenue, a community management strategy can increase customer engagement and happiness, serve as an additional channel for customer service, and provide a platform for your most loyal customers to share their thoughts. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

So, what other benefits can solid community management offer?

Increases customer engagement and customer satisfaction

If your brand can run an effective customer community management strategy, you’ll start to see an increase in customer engagement as well as customer satisfaction. The more your brand's presence overlaps with where your customers are — especially online — the more you can boost engagement. For example, if you provide valuable content on Instagram and engage with people in the comment section, your audience will see your brand as authentic and committed to customers. 

In turn, if customers engage with your brand, they will be more satisfied and will likely return as customers again and again. Even more, for 43% of customers, good customer service breeds more loyal repeat customers — and more brand champions ultimately means more revenue for your brand, thanks to the value of referrals, product reviews, and repeat purchases.

These benefits come at a much lower cost than paid customer acquisition strategies, which require huge investments for customers who might only place one order with your brand — if that.

 Related: Our guide to improving customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, one of the most important metrics for long-term brand growth.

Becomes another convenient and efficient customer service channel

Online community management can also open additional customer service channels for your customers that are more convenient than contacting a call center, using your site’s live chat support, or sending an email. In the community management realm, this could be chatting with a service rep via direct message (DM) on Instagram or troubleshooting an issue on a public Facebook group forum. 

Related: Our guide on customer support in ecommerce.

Provides quality feedback about products or services from your most loyal customers

Feedback is vital to your brand’s success, so additional spaces for customers to share feedback can be extremely valuable. You can even encourage customer feedback about products if your community management strategy includes online forums or social media pages like LinkedIn and Facebook. 

However, there is some risk in asking for feedback in such a public setting. If you'd rather ease into it, you could create a survey that only shows the results to you and your team. Offer something to customers for their time — such as a gift card or entry to a raffle — to incentivize them to participate.

Collecting customer feedback doesn't need to have a complicated format. For example, furniture brand Sabai uses Instagram polls to gauge customer interest in new product designs:

This kind of customer research is a great way to stoke community engagement and mitigate future customer complaints.

Creates more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling

Community management strategies can be effective sales or upselling channels because they give you the chance to educate customers (and let customers educate one another) about how different or additional products can help their needs. 

On top of straightforward product recommendations, you can practice upselling by sharing influencer or user-generated content marketing about new or premium products. Again, the goal isn’t to plug your products directly but incorporate them into content your community might like to see. 

A great example of this is Glamnetic’s TikTok about the do’s and don’ts of eyebrow makeup, which features numerous Glamnetic products:

Related: Our guide to ecommerce upselling and cross-selling for higher average order values (AOVs).

Encourages customers to become your best brand ambassadors

Lastly, a benefit of community management is the ability to create brand ambassadors. You can do this organically by engaging with customers with large followings on social media, but you can also do it more strategically through brand ambassador programs. 

Brand ambassadors provide a type of advocacy that no paid ads could ever achieve. They convince their friends and followers to try your brand, then those friends and followers convince their friends and followers to try your brand, and the cycle continues. This is also a great way to create social proof, or reviews and testimonials you can attach to product pages and your website.

One ecommerce brand that uses this tactic effectively is athleisure company Fabletics. The brand prides itself on being an inclusive, quality, affordable alternative to other high-end athleisure brands like Lululemon. Thus, Fabletics reflects this in their brand ambassador program, where they encourage real people to apply as influencers regardless of their status. In addition, they also work with celebrity influencers who have a passion for health and fitness, such as Kevin Hart and Maddie Ziegler.

‍

Jaxxon, another brand that creates a community around a niche — chain jewelry for main — capitalizes on brand ambassadors who share content on their own social networks.

A step-by-step guide for creating a customer community management strategy

So, now you have a better understanding of why customer community management has the potential to increase your brand's revenue. But how can you create a community that gets results? Here are six steps to building a customer community management strategy that works for your unique brand.

1) Research social media community management platforms

The first step in developing a community management strategy is to do your research.. Think about where your current customers frequent most when online and where your target audience is. For most brands, the easiest place to gather a group of people will be whichever social media platform you already use the most, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or another platform. However, if you’re trying to launch a more :

• Discord: A robust platform that lets you host channels, forums, private messages, multimedia sharing, and more
• Reddit: A platform known for authenticity and impressive crowd moderation — be wary of Reddit’s anti-marketing guidelines, though
• Slack: Mostly known for business teams, Slack can also host customer communities
• Thinkific: A community platform that also offers great functionality for educational courses
• Mighty Networks: The top-rated community marketing platform on G2
• Tribe Platform: A community platform best known for its high degree of customization
• A forum native to your website: If you want, you can also try and build community functionality directly on your website

2) Create goals regarding what kind of outcome you’re looking for with your brand community

Next, you’ll want to create goals that align with the outcomes you hope to see from the strategy. Your goals could be tied to revenue, customer service effectiveness, brand awareness, and public relations. Some example goals may include:

• Higher customer retention
• Lower contact rate for your customer service center due to customers finding answers themselves in your online communities
• Increased interest in a new product or renewed interest in an old product
• Better public perception of your brand

{{lead-magnet-2}}

3) Get to know your audience

Though you likely have a solid idea of who your audience is at this point, you’ll want to continue getting to know your audience on the platforms you identified in step 1. You may realize you need a slightly different approach when applying your community management plan to TikTok versus a Facebook forum, for example. Though your audience may be similar in both places, folks expect quick, educational, and entertaining videos on TikTok. In contrast, they may want longer-winded discussions with other customers about your brand’s products on a Facebook forum.

One way to stoke community engagement is to try and spark interactions. For National Baking Day, for example, chocolate brand Montezuma’s requested community members’ best recipes instead of just sharing recipes themselves:

Related: Learn how Montezuma’s saves five hours a week and answers customer questions faster with Gorgias.

4) Craft valuable and thought-provoking content

Building off step 3, you’ll want to set up a plan to create valuable and thought-provoking content to ensure your customers come back to the online communities you are building. The type of content you create for your community management strategy should align with your overall brand image, tone, and voice. 

For example, let's say you're an ecommerce brand that sells sustainable mid-century furniture. Your community-based digital marketing strategy should include educational content that gives insight into your brand's sustainability: Where your products are made, how you source your materials, what your labor practices are, etc. In addition, you also want to create beautiful imagery (photos and videos) that showcase your brand’s furniture in real peoples’ homes. 

For example, fashion brand Princess Polly (and their community members) create outfit inspiration videos that would be independently interesting, regardless of whether you bought the clothes through the brand. Of course, someone watching might also love a particular garment and head to the website:

Related: Learn how Princess Polly helps customers 95% faster with Gorgias.

5) Use tools to measure success and track customer insights

In addition to the actual content that makes up your customer community management strategy, you’ll want to identify ways to measure the success of your program and track insights from your customers. One way to streamline this step is to find a tool that does what you need automatically. We'll highlight a few awesome insight tools below. Keep in mind that a great tool may require more financial investment upfront, but it will save you tons of time in the long run and should eventually pay for itself. 

Powerful community management tools to explore

• Gorgias: As an all-in-one customer support solution, Gorgias can be an excellent choice for your customer service team to keep up with both current customers and future customers alike through email, social media, and chat. 
• Keyhole: Keeping an eye on what is being said about your brand at any given moment can be a whole job by itself. Using a social listening tool like Keyhole can simplify this process by aggregating all mentions of your brand on social media. You can even keep an eye on your competition this way, which can help keep your brand’s strategy fresh and engaging.
• Tweetdeck: If your brand has a Twitter-heavy strategy, Tweetdeck could assist your team with keeping an eye on specific feeds, hashtags, lists, and even managing your own tweets and messages. The tool also allows for data-driven insights.  
• Grytics: If part of your community management strategy relies on running a specific group or online community, such as a private Facebook group, Grytics could help organize your insights, engagement, and overall performance. 

6) Assign a community manager to help your community flourish

The last step in creating your customer community management strategy is assigning a community manager. A dedicated community manager on your team will help execute your strategy and ensure the communities you’re building are supported and continue to grow. 

A community manager is similar to a social media manager, but there is one major difference. A social media manager typically posts and supports a brand from the inside. This usually means posting from a brand’s social media accounts. On the other hand, a community manager posts as a brand ambassador under their own accounts, not the brand's. The community manager will develop the community as a part of the community. A community manager can also be seen as a brand advocate. 

A great community manager would manage your brand’s community with a seriousness that doesn’t jeopardize the brand but also a friendly and personable attitude to keep customers engaged. Specific tasks of a good community manager could include:

• Ensuring customers' questions are answered
• Moderating conflict within the community
• Enforcing terms of service (TOS) policies
• Keeping the community a positive place for customers to interact

Tips and tricks for community management

As you finalize your customer community management strategy and start executing it, here are some best practices to keep in mind to make it as successful as possible.

Always provide a link back to your website

A link to your brand’s website is never a bad idea because each link out there increases the chance of someone in the community going to your website, clicking around, and making a purchase. Even if your community manager can provide an answer with one sentence of text, try to find somewhere to link to on your website, such as an FAQ page. 

Check out how Branch’s Help Center links back to the US (and Canada) store at the top of the portal:

Stay consistent with the company branding tone while responding to customers

Customers and even to-be customers come to know certain brands based on their tone. And even if you are new to community management, you can quickly become known if you create a unique brand voice and tone in online spaces and stick to it. 

One great way to achieve this is with the help of template responses, which we at Gorgias call Macros. With Macros, you can create and maintain a library of templates for frequently asked questions. But unlike most templates, Macros include variables that automatically populate with information like [Customer name] or [Tracking number of last order]. These Macros accelerate your customer service representatives’s workflows without sacrificing personalization or quality:

Create community guidelines and enforce them

Nobody wants to be the Rule Police, but community guidelines in online spaces are vital for mature, inclusive, and productive discourse. Successful community guidelines will also protect your brand if someone on a forum, for example, starts to get out of hand. Additionally, share your brand’s privacy and data protection standards with community members. 52% of social media users rate their privacy and data protection as highly important, so be sure to let them know how you protect their data.

Ask questions, encourage users to share wins/questions, and find other ways to stoke engagement

Remember that the community isn’t just a place for you to make announcements and sell your own products. Find meaningful ways to get people to talk to one another, share insights, and participate in the discussion.

Always respond to community members in a reasonable time frame

As part of your strategy, be sure to decide on what you and the rest of your team believe to be a reasonable time frame to respond to community members. If a community manager doesn’t respond to a community member’s question for several days, the likelihood of that member using the forum again is unlikely. 

Keep content engaging

Even if you are on a forum that uses mostly blocks of text, think of ways to keep the content engaging, such as incorporating photos, videos, infographics, and even podcasts (if applicable). 

One company you can look to as a model for great content creation is Casper, an ecommerce brand specializing in mattresses and pillows. Beyond its diverse content on various social media platforms, the brand has the Sleep Channel on YouTube, which includes a 12-part series that features sleep meditations and bedtime stories.  

Give back to your community

Lastly, it’s vital to dedicate part of your brand’s community management strategy to give back to your community. This can ensure your brand keeps growing and supports brand loyalty among customers. Ways to give back could include things like hosting contests, giveaways, highlighting user-generated content, and providing other incentives to expand the community. 

3 great examples of customer communities

We’ve covered a few examples of great customer communities above, but here are three more that we see as the gold standard.

310 Nutrition’s Facebook Community focuses on education

Though we mentioned 310 Nutrition earlier, the brand is a perfect example of how to run a strong online community focused on education. The fitness and weight-loss brand provides tons of content in its private Facebook group from brand ambassadors who work for 310 nutrition and are experts in the industry, such as trainers and nutritionists. 

The brand shares high-quality videos and articles with tips and tricks to encourage community members to stay motivated on their health journey. 310 Nutrition’s Facebook community also provides members exclusive promotions. All of these strategies help 310 Nutrition’s Facebook group attract new members regularly.

Annmarie Skin Care encourages emotional connections

Skincare brand, Annmarie Skin Care, combines its loyalty program (called the Wild & Beautiful Collective) with an exclusive Facebook group only open to loyalty-program members. Connecting a loyalty program to a closed online community can be a great way to give an exclusive benefit to loyal customers without investing too much overhead. In the community, loyal customers get exclusive content, access to the Annmarie team, and promotions. 

Oracle offers multiple communities for its powerful software

Even outside of the ecommerce world, online customer communities can be extremely beneficial. Oracle, for example, has different communities to bring together peers who use Oracle products and experts to help navigate the brand’s complex offerings. 

Without this kind of interactive community, new and prospective Oracle customers might be confused about the company’s benefits and use cases. The community helps them learn those things without having to talk to a sales agent:

Build a smooth, profitable customer experience with Gorgias

Creating online communities for your customers can take your brand one step closer to improving the overall customer experience. Online community management gives customers a better shopping experience, more avenues to answer their questions, and boosts your company's revenue in the process.

Efficient, helpful customer service and self-service resources like those offered at Gorgias can help you further your community management goals. Sign up and see how our platform can help streamline customer service interactions, automate repetitive tasks so your team members can focus on connecting with customers, and provide customer data to keep you and your team on track. Book my demo.